Location: Calvary’s Main Worship Center
Time: 7:00 PM
Dates: Thursday & Friday (Sept 14 & 15)
Childcare: Provided
Pastor's Burden
(Adapted from "Giving Is The Good Life" by Randy Alcorn)
We live in a world that screams, “Make lots of money and spend it on yourself, and you’ll be happy. That’s the good life!”
There’s just one problem.
It’s a lie.
Google “the good life,” and you’ll find advice from both secular and religious sources on how to achieve a life worth living.
Further, if we search for “he’s living the good life,” among the first videos that pop up are people in plush surroundings, flipping through a huge stack of cash and singing about partying, and people lounging in a luxury resort.
Articles abound with titles such as “The Keys to Building Wealth and Living the Good Life.”
Neither the videos nor the articles clearly define the good life. Why? Because the creators assume the viewers and the readers agree it’s about accumulating and spending lots of money to purchase happiness.
Every truth seeker must grasp how fundamentally flawed this worldview really is. To correct this fatal perspective, Jesus said:
Luke 12:15, NIV
“Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions”
The last portion of this verse is rendered this way in different translations:
• Your true life is not made up of the things you own. (GNT)
• Life is not measured by how much you own. (NLT)
• Even if a man has much more than he needs, it cannot give him life. (WE)
Jesus immediately followed this statement with the parable of the rich fool, turning our idea of the good life upside down:
Luke 12:16-21 NCV
"There was a rich man who had some land, which grew a good crop. He thought to himself, “What will I do? I have no place to keep all my crops.”
Then he said, “This is what I will do: I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and other goods. Then I can say to myself, ‘I have enough good things stored to last for many years. Rest, eat, drink, and enjoy life!’”
But God said to him, ‘Foolish man! Tonight your life will be taken from you. So who will get those things you have prepared for yourself?’
This is how it will be for those who store up things for themselves and are not rich toward God.”
The most troubling aspect of this parable is that if we
met this man, most of us would commend him for his foresight.
Yet foresight is exactly what he lacked.
He may have planned twenty years ahead, but he failed to plan twenty million years ahead. And as it turned out, he didn’t even have twenty years before facing God in judgment. He had closer to twenty minutes.
“Living large” actually makes us smaller. Living “the good life” (as our culture defines it) results in missing the best (blessed) life.
Here’s a truth that can set us free: Would you like to discover what Jesus meant when he said:
John 10:10, NKJV
“I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly”?
Jesus told his disciples that when they gave money away, their hearts would follow the treasures they were storing in Heaven:
Matthew 6:19-21 (TPT)
“Don't keep hoarding for yourselves earthly treasures that can be stolen by thieves. Material wealth eventually rusts, decays, and loses its value. Instead, stockpile heavenly treasures for yourselves that cannot be stolen and will never rust, decay, or lose their value. For your heart will always pursue what you esteem as your treasure."
He also said that at the Resurrection, God would reward them for helping the needy:
Luke 14:14 (NKJV)
“And you will be blessed, because they [the poor] cannot repay you; for you shall be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”
Somehow we’re forever connected to what we give and the people we give it to. Martin Luther has been credited with saying, “I have held many things in my hands and I have lost them all. But whatever I have placed in God’s hands, that I still possess.”
Let's do better with God's money - together.
- Pastor Haymon