Latest statistic is that in the LTISD area, the average amount of credit card debt is $30,000. And most of these cases aren’t that people aren’t earning enough money. Neighbor gets a new TV, a new car, a new boat, I need one, too. I can’t just take a vacation, it doesn’t count to spend a weekend in San Antonio, I have to spend it in Aruba.
We always feel like there isn’t enough. That if we just had some more, we could finally rest. But enough never comes.
This is part of what it looks like when instead of having God as our center we have money as our center. When our goal isn’t the fruits of the spirit but the storing up of the most toys. When our rule/measure for whether or not we should take an action comes from what the financial cost/benefit analysis says rather than if it is what our faith in God compels us to do.
We end up like Pharaoh, so obsessed with our wealth, our economic prowess, that we don’t have compassion and love for our neighbor, we don’t see or hear God speaking to us through them, we are so obsessed with protecting our mammon and gaining more of it that we’ll forsake our people, our food, our families, our health.
But maybe, just maybe, if we serve God rather than serve wealth, we, too, will find liberation, will be set free.
When we give it up, we take away it’s power. You don’t have the final say, money/wealth/mammon, God does.
Personal story about worrying about finances, and yet, when participating in generosity of finances the freedom that gives and offers, the peace that actually comes from sharing and giving rather than hoarding or always seeking more wealth and feeling like I never have enough.
In giving away money I’ve found a freedom for worry. I realize that I do, in fact, contrary to popular opinion, have enough to make it by, enough to enjoy life, and to share it with others. I have experienced my heart growing in compassion and passion for others. I have been freed from the constant cycle of worrying about how to get more so that I might finally enjoy the abundant life God has in store for me, and been able to start enjoying that abundant life right now, right here.
It changes my life in all the right ways. Ways that enjoying one more nice dinner out each week simply can’t. It frees me from the burden of always having to have more, to have what my neighbors have. It enables me to do justice now, to love kindness and show mercy now, to walk humbly with God trusting that God is abundant and faithful.
Don’t worry.
When wealth tells us that we are what we make and/or what we have, Jesus says, “No, listen! You are precious, so precious you are worth life itself, my life, given for you.”
Today we’re asking one another to commit to give of ourselves in the name of Jesus, for the sake of participating in God’s mission of reconciling the world to God’s self.
And the ask is about a financial contribution.
But it’s also bigger than that.
It’s an ask to trust God with your whole life – with all that you have and all that you are.
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