billionaire

What if Keller is right?  ... where the riches I have in this relationship with Jesus are simply inexhaustible - like I'm a billionaire who loses $10.

"What are you going to do?  Are you you going to get all upset?  Are you going to disrupt the rest of your day?  Are you going to the police and demand they search the city for the cabdriver (who you think may have it)?  No, you are going to shrug.  You're a billionaire.  You lost ten dollars.  So what? You are too rich to be concerned about that kind of loss."

What if its true that the criticism I receive, or the investment loss I've experienced, or the unmet expectations I carry, are my $10?  Genuine losses - reputation, wealth, hopes - but miniscule compared to what is truly mine.  

"You are forgetting that the only eyes in the universe that matter see you not as the 'phony little fake' you have sometimes been, but as a person of captivating beauty."

What if the role of the Holy Spirit in my life IS that of the 'second Advocate'?  Where Jesus, as the first Advocate, speaks to God the Father for me... and the Holy Spirit, as the second Advocate, is speaking to me for me. 

"If you're that upset about your status with other people, if you're constantly lashing out at people for hurting your feelings, you might call it a lack of self-control or a lack of self-esteem, and it is.  But more fundamentally, you have lost touch with your identity.  As a Christian, you're a spiritual billionaire and you're wringing your hands over ten dollars.  It's the job of the second Advocate to argue with you in the court of your heart, to make the case about who you are in Christ, to show you that you're rich.  And it's your job to listen."

(see Tim Kellar - Encounters with Jesus - p141, 144-145)