Sign of Rain

He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good,
and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
Matthew 5:45

Wouldn’t it be convenient if God was good only to the Good and the righteous person? Wouldn’t it be great if only the good person’s business prospered or if only the righteous person’s wealth increased? How simple it would be, to tell if someone was really good, really righteous. Just look at farmer Jones, he must be unrighteous, his garden didn’t get any rain last night, but farmer Smith’s garden has been gently watered all night! And the new store in town must be owned by a righteous man, because his sales are increasing. But the owner of the old store must be doing something evil, because no one buys from him anymore. Well, now we know who God approves of and who He does not!

And each of us would know the minute we did something wrong or walked away from God. We could go out every morning and see and feel the sunshine of God’s approval, or know that God had placed a cloud overhead. And how simple it would be to convince a person to accept Christ and become a believer: look, you want to prosper, to do well in life? Just become one of God’s children, and He will remove all your problems and give you ease and wealth. How convenient, how easy it would be for us!

But how hard-hearted this would make us. No need to love farmer Jones, he’s obviously an evil man. No need to make a choice to behave with consistency to all people; just ignore the unrighteous. And for ourselves, no need to search our own heart, no need to examine our own lives. Just look for that cloud to see if you are doing God’s will or not. And if the choice to become a Christian was based on material prosperity, would we value the sacrifice of Christ? How would we feel about a Savior who died so we could prosper in business?

God gives rain to all and He makes the truth of His Word available to all men. This shows the goodness of God. But it also means that we must make the choice to love others, even when others are failures, even when others reject God’s truth. It means we are in charge of our own daily walk. God doesn’t treat us like trained animals, who do tricks for a reward. We choose to be the children of God because He loves us. We choose to believe His promises because they were bought with a great price, and the result is a reward we will not see until the return of Christ.