Reality vs. fiction - GREED

FICTION is invented either to entertain or to deceive.
REALITY is the state of things as they actually exist.

My wife and I recently went on vacation and along the way visited a very wealthy town. The scenery was beautiful and the weather was perfect for taking a walk. Oddly enough, I began to feel a tug and began to take notice of the town, the houses, the vehicles - the wealth. I began to daydream, “What would it be like if lived here? What would it be like to drive that? What would it be like to be able to buy that?” My attitude began to change and, somehow, so did the scenery. After leaving, the residue left by what I encountered was with me for a couple of hours. It sunk an arrow that I couldn’t seem to pull out. What was that residue? What was it that penetrated me? It wasn’t the wealth itself. Rather, it was a desire for wealth. It was a growing dis-satisfaction with what I had and a lusting for what I didn’t have. Here was a wealthy town, but more specifically, here was a spirit of greed.

Greed is the accumulation of money and/or possessions for one’s sole personal use at the expense or exclusion of another. Greed doesn’t consider others, not even in the same house or office or building or state or nation or world. Greed gathers, it hoards, in complete disregard of one’s own health or the danger to another. Greed is selfishness. Greed is worship - idolatry. Greed is serving another god - slavery. Greed is sin, therefore, greed is death. Greed will keep you from eternal joy, but deliver you to eternal misery. The greedy will not inherit eternal life. In other words, the greedy will not inherit Jesus Christ. (John 17:3)

Generosity, on the other hand, is giving. Generosity is kindness - sacrifice. Generosity is meeting the needs of another, at times even at the expense of one’s own needs. Generosity is love, because it does not seek anything for it’s own sake. It seeks another’s well being. Generosity is being like Jesus - it is a fruit of the Spirit - an attribute of God. Generosity finds it’s happiness in another’s happiness. Similarly, God rejoices when we rejoice over Him. Because we are satisfied by what God has given us, He is satisfied. He is glorified when He is received by us as supremely glorious and beautiful. Generosity is the heart of God. Greed is the heart of Satan, since Satan seeks the destruction of the glory of God in the joy of man. All that Satan does is evil from beginning to end. All that God does is good from beginning to end. Greed is evil because it is not love. Generosity is good because it is love. Love, then, is the difference between God and Satan, greed and generosity, good and evil.

Love is the motivation for not being greedy. Generosity is the antidote for greed, the great weapon in our arsenal in the battle against it. Hospitality is the armor-bearer. Inviting someone in to your home puts you in the position of a servant and being able to share in the burdens and meet the needs of another. Greed isolates you and numbs you down. In this country we spend approximately $7 billion dollars on our face. So this doesn’t include the rest of our body! With $7 billion dollars we could feed 7 billion people in the world for one week. They live on less than a dollar a day. Most of us would say, “One week is not really a long time. It won’t make that big of a difference. It’s just not worth it.” It’s just not worth it?! Only greed would rather spend $7 billion dollars on it’s face than fill the stomach of billions of people for a whole week. Greed is demonic. When you or I can stand by and watch someone in need and think that we are better served by our money than them, then we are sharing in demonic desires. Satan destroys. Closer to home, if you pursue a job to primarily provide for your family, that is good. If you pursue a job so you can primarily have more stuff, that is wrong. Really, the amount of money is not under consideration, but the spirit behind it is. The desire for wealth is a stumbling block for many and, in fact, like we’ve mentioned already is a reason why many will not follow and serve Jesus.

How badly does Jesus want us to give? When the rich young ruler came to Him and asked how eternal life could be inherited, Mark 10:21 points us, first, to the love that Jesus had for him and, second, to the words that Jesus would speak to him. But why? Mark establishes Jesus’ love as the reason for what Jesus is about to say. WHY DID JESUS LOVE HIM? Because a person cannot trust in riches and Jesus, cannot love riches and Jesus and cannot serve riches and Jesus. Jesus wanted all of the young man’s heart!!!! What was Jesus answer? It was to go and sell all that he had and give it to the poor. The young man was concerned about eternal life. So was Jesus. But the young man could not see that it was only by giving up all that he had - abandoning the pursuit and accumulation of earthly treasures - that he could gain eternal life and heavenly treasures. What does this mean? Salvation is the forgiveness of our transgressions against a Holy God, but it is also the forsaking of all other loves, idols, and gods. When Jesus forgives us He also cleanses us from the stains that sin has left and creates new desires in us for Him that overcome all others desires for anything other than him. It’s not that we don’t desire money anymore. It’s that we don’t desire it first for all the benefits it affords us, but first for the glory that it brings Christ by using it in a way that pleases Him. This is the transformation that Jesus brings to a heart. Whereas greed sought it’s own pleasure, now generosity seeks to please Christ, which brings the giver more pleasure than if he was a hoarder!

Many say that they will begin giving when they have enough to give. Some say that they will work until they don’t have to work and then they can give the abundance away and “build the kingdom of God”. That’s shallow, selfish and sinful. God has restrained His wrath from the beginning, in order to give mercy. He has always been generous. Giving begins the moment the need for giving arises. A Christian becomes a Christian the day he (or she) is born again, not the day he attains a certain measure of maturity. The moment a disciple begins learning at the feet of the Master, he begins to imitate his teacher and apply what he has learned. The worshipper begins serving God the instant he recognize God’s worth. Every Christian takes up his cross, denies himself and follows Jesus the day he confesses with his mouth Jesus is Lord and believes in his heart that God raised Jesus from the dead. (Romans 10:9) To not be greedy and to live a generous lifestyle will mean living an uncomfortable lifestyle of not getting, but giving NOW. Being a disciple of Jesus begins where you are and with what you have.

So Jesus told the man to sell all that he had. This wasn’t metaphorical. This was literal. And it wasn’t to finally push him over the minimal requirements necessary for earning eternal life. Clearly, the young man was a good keeper of the law. But the end of the law is Jesus. The fulfillment of keeping the law is found in Jesus. He stands at the end of the law as the reward for having kept the entire law. But if anything, Jesus taught the opposite. No man, as good as he is, even comes close to earning salvation. All men have sinned. All men are under the wrath of God. But Jesus stands as the sacrificial, wrath-absorbing, law-satisfying, perfect and pure Lamb of God. To go and sell all that he had was only possible if the young man believed that it wasn’t a means to an end, but a demonstration of love for Jesus and of trust in Him. Would Jesus be ALL that he wanted? We do not forsake all things in order to gain Christ, we forsake all things because we have gained Christ. The man sold his field because he had a treasure worth more than all the possessions in his possession. (Matthew 13:44) Joy was born in that field, not sorrow. But sorrow was born in the heart of this man, not joy. Mark says that he went away “disheartened”. (Mark 10:22) This man became sad. The sky of his heart became covered with dark clouds and Jesus face that was filled with love was hidden from his sight. He could not let go of all that he was holding onto and all that he was going after. He could not understand that to love Jesus was to, like Jesus, furnish the empty lives of people by supplying what they needed. God is love. Those who love God are known by God. (1 Corinthians 8:3) We come to love Jesus because He first loved us. We come to love others because we first love Jesus. If we do not love Jesus more than our possessions we will not, we cannot, love others.

Only God can give a person a generous heart and remove the greedy heart. Furthermore, generosity only becomes possible if and when Jesus becomes Lord of our possessions. And Jesus only becomes Lord of our possessions when He becomes the King of our hearts. Greed is our throne. Generosity is His throne. We cannot serve two masters.

In these days we must remember that Generosity is a sign of those who are going to inherit eternal life (Mark 10:17), but greed is a sign of those who are not going to inherit eternal life. (1 Corinthians 6:10) We must honestly look at our giving and our hospitality. We must search our hearts. If I held up a $100 dollar bill in front of a group of Christians, chances are pretty good that someone would run up to snatch it for themselves. But if I first read of a husband and wife with three small children moving to northern Tibet where their new home does not include running water or electricity, but only a wooden stove, and that they will have to build their own outhouse, my hope would be that then no one would run up to snatch it away. Maybe my hope is ill founded. But maybe the context would curtail greed. Maybe having a different perspective puts things into reality. Maybe if the church had a higher and more eternal perspective of possessions and earthly and heavenly treasures, we would have more weight in the world.

After the young rich man left Jesus went on to teach His disciples that there is no one who has left everything to follow Him that will not have everything they need. Though it may be little, they will be content. Though it may not seem like enough, it will be enough, somehow. May we as Christian’s spend less time being consumed with hoarding for ourselves all that we want and think we need. And may God give us mercy and deliver us from the spirit of greed, so that we might lay our gold in the dust and declare that He has become our gold. (Job 22:24-25)