This morning in our “Bible Learning Time” we began a four week series on money/stuff. We spent the first several minutes reviewing some TV commercials and talking about the messages we receive from the world. The commercials we watched clearly communicated things like:
- Stuff from our store will help you save money, give your kids value and help them make friends.
- Buying an RV will help you overcome the disconnect in your family created by individualized technology.
- Get the right shoe and you can kick a soccer ball like Stephen Gerrard and Michael Ballack.
- Eat Subway to lose weight, look better and have fun in the park playing baseball!
We talked about the messages that these, and many other sources try to sell us. About what will provide us with value and joy.
Then we looked at the following passages in the Bible:
- Luke 12:13-34 [For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (vs. 34)]
- Matthew 6:19-24 [No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money. (vs. 24)]
- Philippians 4:10-13 [I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. (vs. 12)]
- 1 Timothy 6:10 [For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.]
These passages make it absolutely clear that there are two ways to live life. We can live guided by the values of the world…what the world tells us will give us value and joy…or we can live guided by the values of God’s kingdom. Too many of us who claim the name of Christ try to live as Christians while buying into the worlds messages about stuff and money. There are two ways to live, but the Bible is clear that we can’t live with one foot in each world. If you choose to live by the worlds standards you are not living by God’s…no matter how much you might like to think you are. You can’t be longing for all the toys and finding peace with God. You can’t work towards building up treasures here and in heaven at the same time. This doesn’t mean that a Christian can’t be wealthy. But a Christian truly living in pursuit of the kingdom can’t be in pursuit of wealth.
We closed our session by reading Joshua 24:1-27. In this passage Joshua reviews how God has provided for his people and taken care of them. The people are faced with a choice of following after God or going after the false God’s that their forefather’s used to worship. Are they going to live pursuing the way of God or the way of the world around them? Joshua calls them out and demands that they decide. “But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve.”
Ultimately we face the same decision. We can’t live in the kingdom of the world where value and joy is (supposedly) found in money and stuff and in the kingdom of God where value and joy is found in relationship with the Creator of the Universe through Christ and sealed by the Holy Spirit. We need to choose today whom we will serve because we can’t serve God and money.
Thank you for the book suggestions!
He has devoured “Magic Treehouse” series – at least, as many as we can get from the library. (He finishes one in an hour) I was pretty hesitant to let him read them, but we discus them and I love that he’s learning about other lands/cultures, etc. We finished reading the Narnia series as a family in January (GREAT family discussions from that!) – he LOVED “The Horse and His Boy”! I know I read that as a child, but I didn’t remember it at all. Which one is MJ’s favourite?
As for “Nate the Great” I’ve never heard of it! I’ll check them out next time we’re at the library, thank you!
How are you guys doing? How is your wife? We think of you and pray for you often,
((HUGS))