Self-Esteem – 6.24.08

How much less in them that dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, which are crushed before the moth?

The above quotation is from Job 4:19. I doubt you'll find it in the latest Christian literature or the modern day pulpit, but it's straight from the Holy Bible.

Now, to tell the truth, it doesn't make me feel all that great about myself. Does it you?

I've read in Genesis 2 how God formed man of the dust of the ground. But to me, that's speaks more of God's power than my own worthlessness. I've read Genesis 3 where God told Adam, In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. But I can associate that statement with the curse and read it as a description of the inevitable brevity of life.

Job 4:19, however, seems to be more personal, and speaks of OUR present condition. We dwell in houses of clay. This body is founded in the dust. Crushed before the moth! Ouch. I'm no better than a mud hut. You're no better than a mud hut. Can someone remind me just why it is that we spend so much time and attention and effort pampering and pleasing and catering to the flesh? Remind me, why do we fulfill its lust and desires? Why do we bend to its every whim? Christian, are you really brought under subjection by something that can be crushed by a moth!

I believe it'd be a healthy thing for us to have this perspective of ourselves. We're nothing. God is everything. Let's do what He wants. Better yet, let's surrender our "want" to Him by ignoring the desires of each his/her own dust-ball, and allow what He wants to be what we want.

Now, the blessing in this passage comes by way of the contrast – 2 Corinthians 5:1-2. For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven.

One day we'll trade this mud hut in for a mansion house (John 14:1-3; Philippians 3:20-21; 1 John 3:1-3). We'll trade this earthly tabernacle in for a heavenly temple. We'll trade our temporal dwelling for our eternal abode.

But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: (Matthew 6:20)