I didn't realize it until my freshman year of college, but I was incredibly materialistic through most of my childhood and into my high school years. There were various factors that contributed to this, but the one to note is that my flesh was (and still is) fallen, and like all of us my soul clung to things of this world. Over the past two and half years God has ravished my heart more and more, slowly but surely helping me to release my grip on things that fade.
To fully understand the meaning of this concept and my heart behind it, of unclenching my grasp from things that fade, consider the following passage:
'Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming upon you. Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded your wealth in the last days. Look! The wages you failed to pay the workman who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered innocent men, who were not opposing you'. -James 5:1-6James is one of my favorite books in the Bible, but this passage is a rough text. The book of James as a whole is rather hard to handle as he uses strong words and seems to be calling out various groups of people. Here it is important to consider not the harsh word choice or confrontations but rather the common thread that is shown throughout the Scriptures: God's love for His people. It's true that James is addressing certain groups of people in his book with boldness and perhaps even confrontation, but his intentions are not to condemn but rather to encourage. He is fighting, yes, but he is fighting for the oppressed and out of a righteous heart. He's calling his readers, which includes you and me, to value not things of this world but rather the heart of God, which is solely found in loving other people.
Why are James' words so fervent and harsh? It's because people in his time were not valuing what God values. Instead of loving people and using objects, they were using people and loving objects. The wealthy oppressed the poor, the masters exploited their workers, and people hoarded their wealth while multitudes of souls died and suffered all around them.
When I consider my own life, I wouldn't say I oppress other people as is described in the text, but I also do not want to simply disregard the text as applicable to my own life. The lesson at the core of the passage still applies to me and you today, and it especially applies if you have taken on the name of Jesus Christ. The point of the passage is that there is one rule in this life: value God's heart. This includes various elements, but when evaluating my own life this is the question I must ask myself: am I cherishing what the Father does?
In regards to material possessions, there is much to understand. It would be far too simple to read the words of James and interpret him to be saying that saving is bad and that all possessions are inherently evil.
I do not believe this is what the text means.
In Proverbs 6:6-8, the Bible actually commends saving as wise:
'Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways and be wise. Without having any chief, officer, or ruler, she prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest'.James is not speaking against saving out of wisdom, but rather he is addressing the issue of hoarding. Stockpiling wealth simply for ourselves contradicts God's plan for society. If one has blessings, one is meant to use those blessings to bless other people. Using one's blessings for any other purpose is distorting God's intentions for those blessings. In chapter five of James, the rich should be terrified not because of their blessings, necessarily, but because they failed to value what God values and because they hoarded their wealth and even used it to oppress other people. After a lifetime of hoarding things that do not last, all of their blessings have rotted and stand as condemning evidence that damns them to the hell in which they themselves created. The people in the passage stored up the wrong riches; earthly ones rather than heavenly ones.
Now, I might not have cheated any workers out of their wages lately, but just as the people in biblical times I can too easily slip into the mode of thinking where I care more about my own comfort than about God's children.
It's not wrong to think sweaters are cute (and cozy!) or to say that Anthropologie is my favorite store in terms of style, but when my heart begins to place possessions over people, then a problem exists. When I begin to cling desperately to money instead of giving generously, then something is most certainly wrong within me.
Money, however, isn't really the issue. It's where the heart is. Money and how we use it reveals what's happening in our hearts.
When considering my own life the question to ask is, where is my heart? Am I valuing money and the world or God and His people?
To quote Ben Stuart, 'The more we love money, the less we value people, and God hates this'. Perhaps this is a radical notion, but I say amen.
Over the past two years I have been convicted of materialism yes, but more significant is that God and His love has taken me over. As He has revealed bits and pieces of His heart to me, I have seen and tasted that He is good, and in the midst of His glory everything else grows strangely dim. As He teaches me to love people, I relinquish my grasp on worldly pleasures. As He molds my heart to be like His, it becomes easier to be in the world yet not of the world, and the astounding fact is that not only does it become easier, but I actually want to live in such a way. The more I know God the more I love Him, and the more I love Him the less I love things that fade.
As I shared last week, I am currently at the beginning of a ten week adventure in which I am asking God to prune various areas of my life. The purpose is to cleanse my soul of that which clutters it to make room for what truly matters, and to fix my eyes on Jesus. This process is one that I want to continue to do periodically throughout my life, as I think we all need reminders of what our souls should be fixated upon. As life goes on, our lives become messy, quite like a child's room in need of a good re-organizing and cleaning out.
The first step is to simplify my possessions, which I've been wanting to do for a while anyway. For about a month I've been organizing parts of my wardrobe and other objects into cardboard boxes, and then earlier this week in chapel a speaker came and shared about his ministry that is currently accepting donations of clothes and other items for the homeless in Abilene.
Talk about an alter call; I walked straight up to him afterwards and told him to count on some boxes coming his way.
Not only is it a command of our Father (Deuteronomy 16:17), but it is a desire of His heart, and I want my heart to be after His heart, for He is good and pure and holy.
On top of it all, Jesus was radical about simplicity. He didn't even have a place to rest His head. The King, the One who has all authority and power in heaven and on earth, intentionally chose to give up all that He had for the sake of those who deserved nothing.
If giving generously and valuing God's heart is important to Jesus, then it should be important to me, too.
I am blessed not so I can hoard my blessings, but so I can use them to bless other people.
I have far too much, anyway, and anything in excess only consumes our souls.
God, wreck my life. Come into my cluttered soul and renovate it from the inside out.
There is such beauty in simplicity.
What excess is there in your life? How can you use your blessings to bless other people and glorify our God?
