Where Is Your Heart?

Jesus is quoted by Matthew, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

To put it another way, 'Show me where you spend your discretionary money and time, and I'll tell you what you consider most valuable.' Is it the distraction of sports? Clothes? Vehicles and recreational vehicles? How about mood altering chemicals? Vacations? Tools? Investments? 

The context of what Jesus was talking about is our human desire for more wealth than we need. “You cannot serve both God and money.” He could have added, 'Though most of you will spend your life trying.' When we are young, most of our money goes to acquiring “things.” As people age they start storing up money for when they retire. This, even though Jesus said, “How can it be of any benefit for anyone if s/he gains the whole world, yet loses h/her soul?” 

Well, there is no benefit to accumulating wealth, but that doesn't keep people from trying.

“The world’s 85 richest individuals now own as much as the poorest half of the 7 billion global population (that's 3.5 billion people), according to a report released by Oxfam on Monday. One per cent of the world's families now own 46% of the world's wealth.”

I doubt that any of those people would stumble across this blog, but we regular people are no different. Any person within reach of a key-board is richer than most people in the world. And we want more! As Buddha is reported to have said, “No matter how much you have, a time will come when you will say, “this is not enough.”

Herbert Marcuse has said, “People have been seduced into a comfortable, attractive, tasteful, fully enjoyable, form of slavery. This is the worst kind of slavery.”

We are slaves to ease of living. We work feverishly to pay for things we don't need. We honestly believe that security can be found in storing up “treasures” for ourselves here on earth, where they inevitably deteriorate into junk. And by we, I am now talking about Christians. Or at least those of us who call ourselves Christians. So far is the behaviour of Christians from the teaching of Jesus the Christ that Pope Francis said today, "I ask you to ensure humanity is served by wealth, and not ruled by it." 

It can't go on. It won't go on.

Jesus came to bring a Kingdom of generosity, and fairness, and decency among humans. He expects us, as His followers, to end discrimination and present to the world a mighty river of mercy. We are to care for the poor, not blame them for their fate. We are to care for orphans, not kill them before, or in some cases (see atheist Peter Singer) even after they're are born. “Any foetus is less human than an adult pig.” atheist Richard Dawkins

We are so terribly far from where we need to be, and God promises that there is going to be hell to pay because of our negligence and greed and our pure unadulterated self-love.

And for what? What exactly does an accumulation of wealth bring us? Not what we expect it to bring; that's for sure.

“Most people pursue pleasure with such breathless haste that they hurry right past it.” Kierkegaard 

C.O.Y.O.T.E.

I don't know if it still exists, but there used to be an organization, in Nevada, I think it was, made up of prostitutes and those who use and abuse them called C.O.Y.O.T.E.

It's an acronym that stands for, “Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics.”

Yep, that's what we need. Those who sell their bodies for cash and drugs defining the moral parameters of society.

It's nothing new of course. In the book of Psalms we read:

“Why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth rise up and the rulers band together against the Lord and against his anointed, saying, "Let us break their chains and throw off their shackles.”

Psalms 2:1-3

Every soul who has rejected God's Truth feels imprisoned, constrained, tied down by the prison they have constructed for themselves. 

They are slaves of satan in every sense of the word. 

In bondage to sin. 

Incapable of freeing themselves. 

Because these people are so dull of mind and slow of thought (sin makes us stupid), they actually believe that true freedom is to be found in a total rejection of their Creator.

That's why there is such a rage mounting against Christians and the teachings of Jesus around the world. It hasn't reached a critical mass of opposition – yet – but it's coming.

The stakes are enormous. There is only one force standing between what human nature wants and what it feels it's forced to accept. And that force is Jesus and those who follow His teaching.

Only Jesus keeps the powerful from completely obliterating the weak.

Only Jesus keeps the law from descending into anarchy.

Only Jesus stands in opposition to those who long for an atheistic world power.

As history winds down and as Jesus slowly but surely withdraws His hand of protection, those who oppose God and everything to do with God are going to get exactly what they want – an eternity without any influence of God.