“Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.² Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.³ Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live. I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David. ⁴ See, I made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander for the peoples. ⁵ See, you shall call nations that you do not know, and nations that do not know you shall run to you, because of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, for he has glorified you. ⁶ Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near…” Isaiah 55:1-6

“As long as people are satisfied, they are content to remain as they are. Satisfaction is the foe to progress. As long as you are fully satisfied, you are like a sailing-vessel in a dead calm. The sea about you may be very smooth. Everything may be very peaceful and serene. But all the time this calm prevails you are getting nowhere; you are at a standstill. It is only when the wind rises and the swells begin to move the vessel up and down and the sails begin to strain that good progress begins. You may feel very comfortable in your satisfaction. It may be very delightful and dreamy, but it may be dangerous also. Those who are fully satisfied for very long may be sure that there is need for an investigation. It is only when we become dissatisfied with present conditions and attainments that we are spurred to effectual effort to make progress.” (C.W. Naylor, “Heart Talks”, p. 21)

Can our satisfaction in Jesus make us poor Christians? If we are happy in the Lord, and content with our faith, then does satisfaction mean we have no work to do here and now? No! In fact, our satisfaction in Jesus should make us bold Christians. If we are satisfied with Jesus, then by extension, we should be dissatisfied with the state of the world – for although our faith and trust in Jesus will gain us the Kingdom of Heaven, we are no where near the Kingdom as it will be one day.

If you think about it, dissatisfaction is the mother of progress. If people would have been satisfied with candles lighting our homes, or gas lanterns being the norm, then we would never have sought out the need for electricity. If people were grateful for the wagon wheel, and satisfied with horse power by real horses, then we would never have had a need for the automobile. Dissatisfaction is the mother of progress – it has always and will always be. As such, as we grow in our faith, and begin to internalize the teachings of Jesus, then we should begin to grow dissatisfied with the direction the world is heading – in terms of care for creation, in terms of how we treat the strangers among us, in terms of how we treat the elderly and the homeless, and in terms of how and whether we offer forgiveness and offer love to all people. In other words, we have to be careful not to rest comfortably in our satisfaction of unlimited Grace that comes through Jesus Christ, while there are so many in this world who will never know such satisfaction.

Pastor Dave