Excess?

A company known for excess included some fascinating items in a recent catalog. Dinner for ten could be purchased for $250,000.

(The four chefs who would prepare the food had stellar reputations.) His and hers watches could be had for a little under $1.1 million, and a cute chicken house with ten hens was selling for $100,000. (The catalog did not state whether or not the chickens laid golden eggs.) While God never speaks against money, and while Paul identified “the love of money” —and not money itself— as a “root of all kinds of evil” (1 Timothy 6:10), it is clear that money brings with it a raft of temptations.

Jesus said to “beware of covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses” (Luke 12:15).

Of course, greed can be demonstrated on a much less expensive scale. And it is important to recognize that having expensive possessions is in no way evidence of greed or excess. But whatever and however a person spends, anyone —rich or poor— can be preoccupied with getting “stuff.” It will eventually be discovered that such a preoccupation will ultimately cause pain. To help us see that a self-centered, me-first, have-now approach to life has a deleterious effect on a person’s spiritual health, God included a prohibition on coveting in the Ten Commandments. Society today urges consumption.

Easy credit means people can have almost anything they cannot afford. Modern economies are built upon that premise.

Paul reminded us that “godliness with contentment is great gain” (1 Timothy 6:6). The Bible says nothing against having goods.

But when your goods become your gods, you are standing on shaky spiritual ground. However, there is one form of covetousness the Bible recommends. Paul urged the believers in Corinth to “covet earnestly the best gifts” (1 Corinthians 12:31, KJV). You can never have too much of Jesus or too great a supply of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. If we focus on possessing the best things, we will grow toward the kingdom of heaven rather than away from it.