Saturday, Jul. 23, 2016
ARE YOU GREEDY?
"But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you." - Matthew 6:33
With all the negative
things facing today’s families, one of the worst is materialism, which,
quite simply, is a way of thinking that gives too much importance to
material possessions rather than to spiritual or intellectual things.
It’s basically just plain greed! Kids keep the pressure on parents to
have what their friends have. Husbands put pressure on their wives to go
to work, though she may prefer to be at home. Wives often make it clear
to husbands how dissatisfied they are with what they have, causing the
husband to feel like an unappreciated failure. To top it all off,
advertisers add fuel to the fire by convincing us that every product is
the gateway to happiness.
Materialism, often
rationalized as a concern for the family, has an unfortunate way of
creating enormous dissatisfaction within the family. We’ve seen evidence
of that through our economic downturn, when families, once able to buy
whatever they wanted, are no longer able to buy their way into what they
considered “happiness.”
Jesus has a better idea. It almost seems un-American in our culture
of consumerism: “Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness [as
described in the Bible] and all these things shall be added unto
you.” Does that mean we don’t work hard? Absolutely not! We are called
to work, but it does have to do with priorities that help the family
stay together.
God unites the family. Materialism pulls it apart.
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