Day 63: What's the Point of Earthly Wealth?

Matthew 18:18-35; Numbers 7-8; Ecclesiastes 6

Forgiveness and mercy are given, undeserved, to me; I should bestow the same blanketing forgiveness and mercy to others.  There are people in my life that I had struggled to forgive. But the more I realize just how often and fully God has forgiven me, I can't help but think that not passing on that gift is very selfish of me.

Over and over, Solomon bemoans the value of earthly wealth:  God can give me everything I want, but that doesn’t mean my life is fulfilling.  Perhaps that is what God’s doing with our situation. We were in a pretty big house, but weren't any happier. Now that we are in a smaller house, we have already been able to have bible study, and as soon as the kitchen is done, we will have lots of family dinners here. But it wasn't more money and more square footage that has made us happy--it has actually been less! Unfortunately, that is not what society teaches us: we are a society of more, better, bigger. Just look at TVs. they kept getting bigger and bigger, then they went to flat-screen-awesomeness, then they got bigger and bigger, then higher definition so that you can see the pores on the actors faces, then 3D, and...well, I'm not sure what's coming next. The point is, does a 27 inch regular TV suffice? Yep, it would. But because our culture was bigger and better, we keep replacing the old with the new. As followers of The Lord, we need to be careful about that. The only thing we need more of in our lives is God. 

I pray that God would help us to not to want excess stuff.  May the Lord help us to trust in his provisions as all we need.  God is so good to us and he deserves praise for all he is to us.  May we learn to listen to him and his word, and work to remove sins from our hearts and life so that we may live and be more like Jesus.