Article February 21, 1970 Issue

Look Beyond the Material!

MARGARET W. WALKER

All mankind desire and seek good, but too often this search seems to fall short of fulfillment. The acquisition of things generally believed to be happiness-bestowing brings disappointment instead, or at best only fleeting satisfaction. In other cases individuals believe themselves deprived of good because they do not have these things. In either instance there is a wide gap between desire and fulfillment. Could this not be because mortals fail to look beyond temporary material things to the substance of good, to the lasting spiritual ideas that many good things symbolize?

No one has ever been more keenly conscious than Christ Jesus of the shallowness of material things and their consequent inability to satisfy the deep human yearning for happiness and security. Not that there is anything wrong with many necessary and legitimate things in this mortal sphere. But because they are material, they are necessarily limited and finite. They are unreliable; they come and go, change with changing times, are subject to discord and decay. Therefore they counterfeit what can bring lasting satisfaction—that which is spiritual, infinite, and eternal. Jesus knew this, and he constantly turned the attention of his followers away from the things that counterfeit good to the things that are substance, away from matter to Spirit, the source of present and permanent good.

On one occasion, when someone asked the Master's aid in compelling his brother to share an inheritance with him, Jesus in his reply stated, "A man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth." Luke 12:15; Again, he exhorted his hearers, "Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life." John 6:27; And in his Sermon on the Mount he gave this assurance: "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you." Matt. 6:33;

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