Chapter 1 A Consecrated Life - Far Eastern Bible College

get everything you can for yourself out of this life, so make yourself
rich as quickly you can, and then make yourself look good and feel
good and enjoy yourself.”
And most people living in the world today have somehow been
mysteriously charmed by this message to follow it and to be conformed
to it, very much like the rats that were charmed by the tune of the Pied
Piper. And as we see our friends, our neighbours, and our colleagues at
work, all being enticed by the same tune, we sometimes feel ourselves
drawn to follow it also, unaware of the dangerous end that it will lead us
into.
Dear reader, if this is the case with you now, then awake out of the
charmed stupor you are in, and live in reality! Listen to a parable that
Jesus told. This parable may help you to refocus your life and to take a
step backward and see clearly all the things that you are doing and
pursuing from a true, undistorted and biblical perspective of life.
The parable is about a person who was very successful and great by
the world’s standards, and yet by God’s standards, he really became a
fool. That is why this parable is entitled “The Rich Fool.” First of all, it
is good to find out precisely what occasioned the telling of this parable.
According to Luke 12:13, someone had made a request to Jesus, asking
Him to settle a little legal dispute for him. “Master, speak to my brother,
that he divide the inheritance with me.” But Jesus refused to become
embroiled in this legal dispute over inheritance rights, and said, “Man,
who made me a judge or a divider over you?”
Why did Jesus refuse him? It was not because He did not care for
him. Jesus did care. But it was because He saw that the heart of the
whole matter was a problem of the heart—a covetous heart. This is a
problem that has brought forth and still continues to bring forth
thousands of legal disputes between persons, right up to our present
time. A look at the cases that are heard in the courts of law every day
will confirm this. Most of them deal with claims made by people for
inheritance or for property, and claims for damages.
Everyday, people take one another to court for all kinds of claims.
How many times have you heard of cases when a rich man dies without
52 A Consecrated Life