No Shortcuts, Part 4 - Stuff @imagechurch Dumfries, VA

What you do with your money, shows what you value in your heart.

Stuff, in and of itself, is not bad or evil. But the harm comes when we value those things above eternal investments. The truth comes when we look at what we serve. Do we make a priority to serve gaining more things in our lives or serve the eternal treasures that Christ values.

Our desire for those around us should be that they see the depth of our value in Christ that they have a desire to join us.

High places are always slippery places.

Satan's temptation to Christ in this passage was for stuff, He only needed to worship Satan. Christ quickly responded to Satan to "BE GONE!" Satan was tempting Christ to turn from worshiping the one true God to worshiping the things of the world, and ultimately to worship Satan.

Fleeing from temptation may cause us embarrassment. But the result of giving into temptation is far worse.

Jesus refused to wear a gold crown in place of a wooden cross.

Our temptation to sin is always an issue of the heart. There is no way to take care of issues in the heart without doing exactly as Christ did. His focus was on the cross and refused to go any direction except that which led him to the cross. Christ sacrificed His comfort to submit to the will of God, being the example for us to follow.

I deserve to go to the cross and die, but I cannot pay the price that Jesus paid.

If we say that we love Jesus and value Jesus, does our spending reflect that? When we value Jesus, one of the things that will lead us to is being generous. Jesus did not live with a sense of entitlement. Generosity is the only antidote to materialism.

cf Luke 12:13-21 There is nothing wrong with sorting up treasure, but only if there is no infinitely powerful God and there is no resurrection.

To value Jesus means that everything that we have means nothing to us when compared to how we view Christ.

Jesus told Satan to be gone because He has the authority to, those who know Christ have that same power when facing temptation.

If we struggle with given away our stuff, the real question we must ask is "is Jesus enough?"

RECOGNIZING STUFF FOR WHAT IT IS:

1. We recognize where it come from, therefore we desire to give it.
2. We recognize responsibility for what God has given us, therefore we save.
3. We recognize debt as slavery, therefore we have a plan to pay it off and pay our bills.
4. We recognize authority, therefore we pay our taxes.
5. We recognize our freedom from worry, therefore we have we freedom to spend.

Imagine this... watching God using our temporal stuff for His eternal glory.

Created about 1 year ago