Have you ever felt "it?" Right here, in your heart? A loneliness, an emptiness, something dark and sorrowful, the feeling like you’re missing something. You come home, set your keys on the kitchen table and collapse into the nearest couch. Or you wake up look at your face in the mirror, and the loneliness stares back at you. When will it end, Lord? When will the sorrow be over? When will the pain stop and the joy begin? In our mind’s eye, we see the rest of the world and we accuse God of being unjust: Lord look at them, they have it all, they have happiness. Where’s mine? Where’s my slice of the pie? Why do you bless the wicked and forget about me?

And God’s answer doesn’t seem to satisfy us: My love is all you need, though the world may hate it, my love makes you rich.

Luke 6:20, "Looking at his disciples, Jesus said: 'Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.'"

You and I may look as poor and worthless as dirt to the world, but we have an inheritance that makes a palace look like a shack in the woods: we have the kingdom of God. This is God’s eternal city, the place where the fullness of his glory resides, the glory which no human may see lest he die. This is where we belong. When Christ died on the cross he paid the price for all the times we sold ourselves to the lie of the world; for all the times we didn’t think God’s love was good enough. Through Christ, God has placed his name on your heart, you belong to him as a child. And as a child you have the right to claim the eternal city of God as your eternal city. There, surrounded by the angels and the faithful believers who have gone before us, we will finally be free from our sinful natures that we drag along in this life. We will finally be able to live perfectly in harmony with the will of God: no more doubting God’s love for us, no more sadness, no more anger, no more loneliness, no more hatred, no more sin.

Rich.

Beautifully, unbelievably rich.