Insurance Or Assurance?

You shall rejoice in every good thing which the LORD your God has given to you and your house, you and the Levite and the stranger who is among you.

Deuteronomy 26:11

Taken as a whole, no group of Christians lives such a prosperous existence as the church in America. Yes, individual believers experience personal setbacks and occasional sufferings, as do believers in other lands. For the most part, however, there is a cushion of affluence and provision in the West that lessens the pain of our temporary sufferings.

But do affluence and prosperity make us better believers? In explaining why the church was growing so much more rapidly in Africa than in America, one African bishop said, “In America you have blessed insurance. In Africa all we have is blessed assurance!” In other words, the less people have, the more they tend to see their need for God. The converse is also true: the more people have materially, the less they tend to see their need for God. We ought to be on our knees thanking God for all our many blessings. But while we’re there, we ought to ask Him not to let our blessings obscure our vision of and dependence on the “Blesser.”

If you have more of God’s provisions than you have of God Himself, it may be time for an assurance check.

Wherever riches have increased, the essence of religion has decreased in the same proportion.

JOHN WESLEY