How to Ensure You Gain Nothing

Thinking about 1 Cor 13.3 this morning where Paul lays out a clear path for us to ensure that we gain nothing. It's quite easy. Whatever else one does, be it helping our fellow man, having great faith, being filled up with knowledge; if we want to gain nothing we just need to do the opposite of what Mother Teresa said. I believe she said, "We can do no great things, just little things with great love."

Do you want to gain nothing? Do ginormous things without love.

The Curse of Riches

Isn't that what Christ is implying in Matt 19.23? Nothing is impossible with God—we will definitely see rich people in heaven—however, riches shield one to some extent from the difficulties of life which so often lead one to trust Christ for salvation. Thus what seems to be a great blessing (wealth) might turn out to be a curse. We in the West have great wealth. We are spiritually poor.

Mother Teresa agrees with me. Mary Poplin comments about this issue in her fantastic book Finding Calcutta: "Mother told me how people in the West are poor. In fact, she considered us the poorest of the poor spiritually because our physical comfort makes us believe we do not need God and our busyness makes us ignore him."