I don’t think there’s a Baptist alive who hasn’t heard Hebrews 13:5: “- I will never leave you or forsake you.” But that’s actually only the last eight words of that verse. How many of us know the entire passage?
Bates“Your life should be free from the love of money. Be satisfied with what you have, for he himself has said, I will never leave you or forsake you.”
Why should our lives be free from the love of money? Because Jesus Christ, who “will never leave you or forsake you,” is sufficient. Why should we be satisfied with what we have? Because he who “will never leave you or forsake you” is our Provider.
Are we free from the love of money? A survey done a few years ago by the Barna Group compared churchgoers with unchurched people and found varying degrees of differences in their responses to a number of situations. For example, 62 percent of unchurched people said they would go out of their way to speak a kind word to someone who appeared to need encouragement. A more impressive 79 percent of churchgoing respondents said they would offer encouragement.
But when it came to people opening their wallets, here’s what the survey found: “There was no discernible difference” between the unchurched and churchgoers “in their likelihood of giving money to a poor person whom they met.”
When it comes to our billfolds, we believers don’t want to get up off them. Another recent Barna survey showed that 16 percent of those who claim to be born-again Christians give nothing to their church over the course of an entire church year. Nada. Zip. Zero. Zilch. Cut that percentage in half and you’ll find the percentage of believers who actually tithe their income to their place of worship – 8 percent.
Seems to me that those statistics speak loudly – we have a major problem with the love of money. Which leads right into the next portion of Hebrews 13:5: “Be satisfied with what you have.” We aren’t doing too good on that point, either.
Despite what the Bible teaches, despite the sadness and misery we see in the lives of many fabulously wealthy celebrities, we still think that having a little more “stuff” is going to make all the difference in our own lives. But it’s just not so.
A study published in a 2003 issue of Journal of Personality and Social Psychology concluded that people “live happier lives if they invest in experiences more than material possessions.” Meaning what? Stuff won’t make us happy; what we do with our lives, on the other hand, very well can.
Certainly, “stuff” can give us temporary happiness. But the single experience that’s imperative even to begin to discover lasting joy and continual peace is a 100 percent commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ. After all, he made us in his image (James 3:9); therefore, our fulfillment can only come from being like him.
How do we accomplish this? By consciously refusing to feed our old fleshly selves and constantly choosing to keep “the new self” (Ephesians 4:24) growing and healthy and fed on the word of God through regular worship, prayer and times of fellowship with other believers.
So here it is in a nutshell: When we seek to be like Jesus, our generosity will increase and the importance of material possessions will diminish.
Bates is a freelance writer, author, speaker and creator of Bargainomics, a Bible-based time and money management philosophy, and the author of the new book, “Blessedly Budgeted Women’s Events.” Visit her Web site at www.bargainomics.com.