The Green Monster

Scripture

“Beware! Guard against every kind of greed. Life is not measured by how much you own.”

~Luke 12:15, NLT

Quote

Having is not the first sin of materialism: The sin that precedes it is the sin of regarding what we have as our own.

~Calvin Miller

There is a greedy little man in me and if I don’t make him subject to the law of Christ, he will transform me into a miser. Hopefully, you have observed, misers are not happy people. The subject of  poverty came up in our bible study group last Sunday. Our friend Jim is 93 and he was a child in the 1930’s during the Great Depression. Jim’s mother died when he was six and his grandfather raised him. Not only did he take Jim in, he took Jim’s siblings and some cousins to boot; in all there were 13 mouths to feed. Jim said the main goal for each new day was to scape up enough for the next meal. I grew up in the 50’s with no cokes, candy bars, or snacks of any kind. No Debby cakes in the pantry and no ice cream in the freezer but our generation had it much better than our parents. My children think they were raised poor but they had more than we did and we had more than our parents.

I am reading Calvin Miller’s INTO THE DEPTHS OF GOD and he stirred my mind with his section on the third world. He makes reference to India but it is also true in Africa, North Korea and probably parts of China. This is what Miller said we would have to do to have some understanding of how these people live…

  1. Remove all your furniture except the kitchen table.
  2. Get rid of all your excess clothing. Keep one outfit per family member and no one get’s shoes except the head of the family.
  3. Get rid of all electric appliances, they have no electricity in the third world.
  4. Throw out all the excess food: keep a few potatoes and a handful of flour and maybe some dried beans or peas.
  5. Dismantle the bathroom: there are no inside bathrooms in the third world.
  6. Shut off the running water. They don’t even have enough drinking water in the third world; let alone bath water.
  7. Shut your house down completely and move into the tool shed.
  8. Don’t look for the postman; there is no mail and no government services.
  9. Do your kids hate school, not a problem in the third world; many kids don’t get to go at all. Usually one or two or selected from each family and they have to walk to school.
  10. Burn your checkbook, credit cards and forget your pensions and you IRS’s. They don’t exist in the third world.
  11. Find you two or three open acres for a garden because this is all that will keep you alive.
  12. It will take everything that you and your children can make just to get by. There will be no money for health care so you can lop off 25-30 years of your life.

Miller says, “Grace is the antidote to materialism. Grace never shows out; and never draws attention to itself.” What God wants us to treasure is our relationship to Him and His Son. He wants our treasure to be inward and spiritual so that no one can take it from us. Only when we relate to things from God’s point of view will we be able to escape the grasp of the Green Monster {Greed}. Miller says, “When we trade our spiritual treasures for mere trifles, the grand dream we had for serving Christ seeps away through he glitzy pores of our greed.” Do not give in to your greed. The way to over come this green monster is to give every time you have the opportunity.

Extra

Sorry I am late today. Ty has been dressing with the varsity and they play late into the night. It was after ten before I got home last night plus I had a bad headache early this morning and I had to spend some time with Jackson or he would be ill. I held him while June gave him his medicine and that got him upset with me which gave me time to get ready and get to the office.

Visitation and preparation for service tonight on the agenda today. I have spent the last two days studying for the Bible study at Sardis Springs and I may resume that tomorrow since Josh is preaching Sunday.

I hope you have a great day and thanks for reading the blog.

 

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