About Jesus - Steve (Stephen) Sweetman

Home Page

The Cost Of Living

The term "cost of living" is an economic term that denotes the financial cost of simply staying alive, and in today's economy, staying alive is costly.  On his 2015 "Cass County" album, Don Henley of the Eagles fame sings a song entitled "The Cost of Living."  Here are a few lines from the song.

"Some folks don't like workin' hard
Some folks don't like rain
Some folks love to tell you
All about their aches and pains
Me, I take the hand I'm dealt
And I play it as it lays
It's the cost of living
And everyone pays"

Henley says he plays the hand life deals him because it's just the cost of living that everyone pays.  In other words, all of the good and bad that life deals us is par for the human experience.  We play any hand dealt us in stride because it's just the price we pay for being human.   

The present Covid crises being dealt us is revealing some unhealthy and unbiblical responses by some Christians who claim Jesus will prevent them from getting sick.  They live without restraint as they flaunt what I call a faulty faith.  Present trends, history, and Scripture do not support this mindset.  Presently, Christians are being infected with Covid just like non-Christians.  Historically, the saved have felt the pains of life alongside the unsaved.  Scripturally, saints suffer from our fallen world just as much as sinners.  The rain falls on both the righteous and unrighteous (Matthew 5:45).  A hurricane doesn't skip over the sanctuaries of the sanctified.   

The effects of humanity's expulsion from the Garden of Eden have dealt us all a bad hand we are forced to play, and play we will until creation passes away (Revelation 21:1).  We're left as being fallen people being dealt fallen hands from a fallen world.  The title of Lynn Anderson's 1970 hit song "I Never Promised You A Rose Garden" expressed this correctly.  Neither our present reality, history, Scripture, nor Jesus Himself, promises a fragrance-filled life of roses.  Jesus actually promised the opposite, as seen in John 16:33.

"I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."

Search all you want, but I doubt you will find that promise in any Biblical promise box.         

Our fallen world has dealt us a hand of decay that leads to death.  In scientific terms, it's called "entropy."  All of creation, therefore, waits with eager expectation for its release from the bondage to death and decay (Romans 8:18 - 21).  Until that day comes, saints will suffer alongside sinners.  Anyone claiming sufficient faith to be released from this bad hand of bondage prior to Liberation Day has a misguided and faulty faith.          

Whatever hand our fallen world deals us, we play it with grace and wisdom that the peace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit provide.  It's just the cost of living that everyone pays.  

 Home Page