“Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does
not consist in an abundance of possessions.” (Luke 12:15).
The American dream can turn into a nightmare if you’re not careful. In the United States, the average size of a new home has doubled since 1960, from 1,300 square feet to 2,600 today. And that’s not enough space to store all our stuff, so we use self-storage facilities, an industry that didn’t even exist in the 1960’s! Clearly, our drive to acquire more and more stuff has gotten out of control. How did this happen?
Two of the strongest drives for men and women are to build wealth and status. We buy stuff to keep up our image. And for many of us, ordinary stuff isn’t good enough. So, we buy bigger and better and newer. But since there is always someone that has cooler stuff than us, we never catch up. Nevertheless, we still try to keep up with the Joneses. Even though it all ends up in the junkyard, anyway.
It’s funny how excited we get about our purchases, only to experience buyer’s remorse and become disenchanted a short time later when something newer comes along, rendering what we already bought instantly obsolete. We once had a neighbor who bought a brand new Camaro, but the very next year traded it in for an all-new model.
“Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” (Jesus, Matthew 6:33).
If your household income is more than $10,000 per year, you’re making more than the average family in the world, which puts you in the category of the rich. Funny thing is, the more we make, the more we spend and the less we save and the less we give away. But all our money comes from God and we are supposed to be generous with it. Spending so much of our time, energy and money on stuff leaves little time or resources to help build the kingdom of God. Or we spend the best years of our lives working so hard to save enough money so we can live comfortably for the last 10-20 years of our lives, if we live that long. It’s good to work hard and plan ahead as long as we don’t sacrifice the things that are the most precious – time with our families which we will never get back and time that could have been used to serve God. What are we investing in for our eternal portfolios? Don’t be a collector – be a dispenser!
These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. (Matthew 15:8).
We say everything we own belongs to God, but do our hearts betray him? I once knew a pastor who would say “Your god is what you think about the most.”
Our marriages also suffer because we can’t agree on who gets to buy what stuff. God understands our tendency to grasp for more; that’s why he gave us the tenth commandment, “You shall not covet.”
I’ll never forget watching an older gentleman dancing and praising God outside of his dirt floor shack in the Dominican Republic. He was so excited seeing us raise the roof on his new church that was going up next door. He had no plumbing or electricity, but he was ecstatic because he had the joy of the Lord. He was rich toward God!
“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Jesus, Matthew 6:19-21)
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Dwell in His secret place 