“For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow”(Ecclesiastes 1:18).
TEXT — Ecclesiastes 1:12-18
Message
The story is told of a wealthy industrialist who leapt from a Chicago’s ninth-story room, leaving this note: “I am worth ten million dollars as men judge things, but I am so poor in spirit that I cannot live any longer.” Something is terribly wrong with life.” He was right. Something was terribly wrong with his life – because he didn’t experience the new birth, and therefore, had nothing to anchor his poor soul upon, in times of difficulties.
Our passage for consideration today enunciates the pathetic picture of godless people who pursue earthly wisdom and knowledge acquisition without thinking about God and their relationship with Him. They feel they do not need God, with the assumption that they have all it takes to be independent of the Creator’s care, wisdom and guidance. They pursue the mundane and mock God, His word and the upright, at the expense of their souls. They run after the temporal, forgetting the everlasting. They live for the present and are mindless of the future. They amass stupendous wealth, receive accolades for their achievements in different fields, and heap so much that will last generations but are miserable and poor towards God.
Our world is replete with stories of wise, knowledgeable, wealthy, and accomplished men and women who live without satisfaction. They broke records in various fields of human endeavours and are revered by fellow mortals but never fulfilled. The lacuna and inner void are apparent. Many such opulent personalities end up miserable. Some with dementia, depression, wounds from self-inflicted injuries, and some commit suicide, confirming the truism that Christless living is a bundle of miseries and emptiness. Like the preacher aptly says, “vanity of vanities, all is vanity”.
We must not forget that all we acquire on earth will not be relevant after death. The Lord’s counsel is essential for all mortals. What shall it profit any man to gain the whole world and lose his soul? Will you seek heavenly riches or continue pursuing a mirage like others? The decision is yours!
Thought for the day
Worldly accomplishments without Christ, in the end, prove worthless.
Listed among “500 most powerful people on the planet” by the Foreign Policy magazine in 2013, Pastor (Dr.) William F. Kumuyi is the founder and General Superintendent of the Deeper Christian Life Ministry (DCLM) headquartered in Lagos, Nigeria. DCLM started in 1973 as a 15-member Bible study group right in Kumuyi’s apartment at University of Lagos where he was a lecturer. His revolutionary Bible teaching on personal holiness and commitment to evangelism soon gained so much traction and resulted in a widespread revival.
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