In Christian writer Philip Gulley’s novel, Home to Harmony, members of a fictitious Quaker church find out someone in the congregation is rumored to have won the multi-million dollar state lottery. Like most major lotteries, the winner has up to a year to claim the prize; so because every member was a potential millionaire, everyone in the church began treating each other with respect, kindness, and patience. While most committee meetings used to end up with one strong-willed member in an argument with another, now everyone could see the others’ perspectives. While most Sundays, Pastor Sam Gardner could expect several harsh admonishments on his sermon, everyone now smiled at him after church.

As time went on and with no one yet claiming the prize, people began dropping notes of encouragement into one another’s mailboxes and cooking meals for people who seemed tired. Folks apologized for twenty-year-old disagreements, and elderly ladies asked repentance from elderly men with whom they had refused to go to the high school prom in the 1950s.

Everyone, of course, wanted to make sure they were on good footing with the church member who eventually would claim the big check during that year. The church never experienced a time of such kindness and love as the year of the unclaimed lottery ticket.

Isn’t it amazing what we’ll do to become rich? What if I told you I know someone who could give you more riches than Bill Gates’s Microsoft stock holdings or Howard Hughes’ estate? If I told you his address, would you drop a note in his mailbox once in a while? What if I told you this person has been with you your whole life, that you haven’t always treated him very nicely; but if you said you were sorry and wanted him in your life, he’d hand you a blank check? Would you visit him? I would.

His name is Jesus, of course, and the riches he has to offer last longer than tax-free PowerBall winnings. Paul says in Philippians 3:8 that “everything else is worthless when compared to the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ and become one with him.” Paul later says, “This same God who takes care of me will supply all your needs from his glorious riches, which have been given to us in Christ Jesus” ( Philippians 4:19). Sadly, many of us spend our waking hours seeking out and favoring those in our lives who have earthly wealth.

Jesus is waiting for a note from you. He’s waiting for you to show love, patience, kindness, and every other fruit of the Spirit to everyone in your life. Your reward is that those you touch will touch others. That’s called Kingdom building. In 2 Corinthians 6:10 , Paul offers a glimpse of his own mandate to build God’s Kingdom: “We are poor, but we give spiritual riches to others. We own nothing, and yet we have everything.”

That’s what Jesus calls us to do. He gives us endless riches with the hope that we in turn give them away again. When we allow him in our lives, accept his deep riches, and then give them away to others, we will win the spiritual lottery.

He wants you to claim that prize today.

As for that elderly Quaker couple who won the $5 million in Gulley’s novel

God bless,
Melvin Neo