Infected By Affluence

By John Clardy

 

1Timothy 6:7-12 GNB

(7)  What did we bring into the world? Nothing! What can we take out of the world? Nothing!

(8)  So then, if we have food and clothes, that should be enough for us.

(9)  But those who want to get rich fall into temptation and are caught in the trap of many foolish and harmful desires, which pull them down to ruin and destruction.

(10)  For the love of money is a source of all kinds of evil. Some have been so eager to have it that they have wandered away from the faith and have broken their hearts with many sorrows.

(11)  But you, man of God, avoid all these things. Strive for righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness.

(12)  Run your best in the race of faith, and win eternal life for yourself; for it was to this life that God called you when you firmly professed your faith before many witnesses.

 

Alas, America has been infected by a flu virus that is more vicious than any other known disease. Its medical name (made up) is affluenza-gotta-have-it-itis.  Early onset signs are: loss of common sense, expectation of entitlement and regarding the gaining of material possessions as proof of success and happiness.

 

Each of us is susceptible to this disease unless we have been vaccinated with the contentment serum that comes only from having something in our lives that is more valuable than all the things that money can buy.

 

Do you collect and hoard material things until your house can't hold it all and then rent storage space to store your stuff?  Do you throw out yesterday's treasures to make room for today's latest purchases? Does expensive apparel end up at Salvation Army or in a yard sale for 50 cents simply because they are no longer fashionable? These are also classic symptoms that you have affluenza!


As Americans, we indulge ourselves with pleasure and possessions. We waste more food in a day than most of the world eats in a week.  We entertain ourselves to death and die of boredom. And we bury any remorse over it by buying more, eating more and consuming more whether we can afford it or not.

 

The wise man wrote in Proverbs 13:7, There is that maketh himself rich, yet hath nothing: there is that maketh himself poor, yet hath great riches.

 

We don't need more possessions or money.  We need a change of our hearts and our habits! We need a dose of reality that recognizes “I need” and “I want” are not the same! We need a revival of repentance! We need a revival of compassion! We need a revival of contentment and thankfulness

 

Let us never take our eyes off the truly valuable things of God which are everlasting and replace greedy affluence with gracious thanks.  (Roger Wright)


I can still hear my grandpa saying, “John, if they were selling Cadillac’s for a quarter, it wouldn’t be a bargain unless you had the quarter!” Pretty wise for a hard working, self educated man that had to quit school in the 8th grade to go to work to help support his family, huh?  We could use some of that good old fashion common sense in America right now!