So My Soul Thirsts

“As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God”- Psalm 42:1

According to the article above, the U.S. is in deep trouble concerning poverty. In the article, Angus Deaton explains that “according to the World Bank, 769 million people lived on less than $1.90 a day in 2013; they are the world’s very poorest. Of these, 3.2 million live in the United States, and 3.3 million in other high-income countries (most in Italy, Japan and Spain)”. He then goes on to shockingly point out that when compared to other countries poverty levels, America proves to be highly impoverished. For example, he states that “there are 5.3 million Americans who are absolutely poor by global standards. This is a small number compared with the one for India, for example, but it is more than in Sierra Leone (3.2 million) or Nepal (2.5 million”.

After considering the physical poverty of my people, my heart goes out to the least of these. The statistics are difficult to take in and believe that such poverty takes place so close to me. It seems like such a hopeless cause that I am unable to solve. From interacting with the homeless and those in a lower social class through street ministry, my heart goes out to the hopeless cycle of poverty.

Even more than this physical poverty that does seem hopeless and too difficult to solve, there is an even deeper poverty I’ve seen in the hearts of many around me. This poverty is the lack of knowledge of God in the lives of Americans. According to Operation World, a missions organization, the fastest growing religion in America is nonreligious. The hearts of my people see no room for God in their lives. They’ve turned and forsake the “living water” (Jeremiah 17:13b), and “we all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way” (Isaiah 53:6b). There is a poverty that the prophet Jeremiah saw in his own people, claiming “these are only the poor; they are foolish, for they do not know the way of the LORD, the requirements of their God” (Jeremiah 5:4). This poverty Jeremiah speaks of, is the sinful nature of man. All have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). We all like sheep have gone astray and have gone our own way. As a sheep without a shepherd is lost and in danger, man without God is in eternal danger. Because of our sin and rebellion towards God, we by our sinful nature deserve a forever punishment (Romans 6:23b). God is a perfect God and no unclean thing can enter His presence (Revelation 21:27). This leaves man in a completely hopeless state of poverty, headed for an eternal punishment.

But God made a way for us to return to Himself by His great love and mercy.

“For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him will have eternal life”- John 3:16

Christ died for our sins and rose from the grave!

In repenting from our sins and believing in Christ alone, our hearts are taken out of their poverty that was once headed for hopeless and eternal destruction to a true treasure. This treasure namely being Christ Himself. My favorite parable Jesus tells in the Bible is found in Matthew 13:44

“The kingdom of God is like a treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field”

Jesus is the greatest treasure, joy, pleasure, delight, and happiness that is able to bring us back to God from our helpless spiritual state.

Now in response to the spiritual poverty around me, there is a treasure that I know for certain will satisfy all who thirst and have nothing. In 2 Corinthians 6:4, Paul explains the state of a disciple of Christ as “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing, everything”. As Christians, we have the only satisfying treasure in the world. CHRIST HIMSELF IS MINE! Now I, by the power of the Holy Spirit am able to share this treasure with those in eternal poverty. Having Christ, I do possess everything, and I make it my aim to make many rich with the good news of the gospel.

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