It’s everywhere in the media, with graphs and charts explaining the collapse of the housing boom, with horror stories of foreclosures. Some couples are left with debt and no assets to account for it, for they have lost the house and still they’re in debt because they had furnished the house they couldn’t afford to begin with. Credit was too easy.
One lady, when finally the dust settled, was forced to scrounge and discovered that when it was so good an enthusiastic sales agent had her down with income of $4000 a month when in fact it was hardly more than half that. Things were so good she could hardly believe that young as she was she had this huge new house with room for three cars and a pad for a boat. Some couples barely out of their teens with modest resources had housing fit for semi-millionaires, all on easy credit, and sometimes with expensive vacations also.
But painful foreclosures may be God-given good news, evidence of the blessing of the Holy Spirit. Trouble may be needed to teach us how to get our feet settled on “solid rock,” not only economically but spiritually (cf. Psalm 40:1, 2).
The apostle Paul has a good lesson in godly economics. He writes young Timothy to “withdraw yourself” from the “gain is godliness” teaching (1 Tim. 6:5, KJV). “Godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and clothing, with these we shall be content” (vss. 6-8, NKJV).
There is something basically immoral about reveling in materialist wealth on this great cosmic Day of Atonement. The argument is vain that your personal self-denial can’t really help someone in Darfur, so why not revel? If you are a multimillionaire by inheritance, you can’t help yourself on that score. But you can do what the Lord Jesus tells us, “sell what you have and give to the poor” (Matt. 19:21). The biblical idea constantly is, beware of this world’s empty wealth. To get obsessed with it can lead to losing the eternal. Let’s live and have our being in the light of the love revealed at the cross as agape.
Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.
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