Psalm 15:5-11:
“The LORD is my chosen portion and my cup; you hold my lot.  The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.  I bless the LORD who gives me counsel; in the night also my heart instructs me.  I haveset the LORD always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.  Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices; my flesh also dwells secure.  For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption.  You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”

I wonder how many Christians were actually told up front that they were buying into a life of suffering.  My guess is not many, but for those of us who have walked with the Lord for a while, you know that most days it is not easy to be a Christian.  I really wonder how evangelism would work if we sincerely followed Jesus’ guidance from Luke 14, to count the cost of following Him beforehand.  Luke 14:25-27, 33 – “Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple…  So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.”

Can you imagine!  Jesus definitely wasn’t seeking to be the next megachurch leader and was definitely not telling these people how to have “their best life now”.  Jesus was preparing these people to understand that they had a choice between the world, and Himself.  So when I look at David, when he says that the Lord is his “chosen portion”, I know exactly what that means.  Following Christ isn’t a means to something else, like worldly comfort or riches, following Christ is a daily choice to pursue joy in God instead of the world, and it is hard.  In fact, the only way we are able to choose God is if the grace of God enables us.  Each day we get to decide if we will set Christ before us, or if we will set ourselves before Him.  One way, we are guided by the Word of God through hardship to life, and the other we seek to avoid hardship through sin that leads to death.  David’s comfort flowed from His faith in God.  He may have chosen a harder life, one that put him in danger often, but he trusted that God would lead him, counsel him, and instruct him daily in how he should live, so that his future inheritance was secure.

There is one path of life, and His name is Jesus.  He calls us to lives that the world will call foolish; using money not for ourselves, but to extend His kingdom, spending our time, not selflishly but to honor and serve others as more important than ourselves, to forgive as we have been forgiven, to love even unto death.  What choices has your life been marked by today? in the last month? in the last year? If you are making the choice daily to bear your cross and make the Lord your portion, be encouraged today and daily; the whole world cannot contain the weight of glory that is to be revealed to us in Christ.  He is our hope, the fullness of joy, and our holy inheritance.

Grace and Peace,
Adam