There is a book I've
been reading called, The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I'm about halfway through it and I have to
tell you it has given me A LOT of food for thought. I haven't agreed with 100%
of all this man has written, but I have to tell you He's delved into A LOT of truth and expounded on it in very
meaningful ways.
Because we've spent
more than a month and a half reading about Jesus' teachings and this book has
expounded upon A LOT of those.
I'd like to quote
from the book a bit, taking from chapter 17, 'The Simplicity of the Carefree
Life.' (Matthew 6:19-24)
Mat 6:19 Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon
earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and
steal:
Mat 6:20 But lay up for yourselves treasures in
heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not
break through nor steal:
Mat 6:21 For where your treasure is, there will your
heart be also.
Mat 6:22 The light of the body is the eye: if
therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.
Mat 6:23 But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body
shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness,
how great is that darkness!
Mat 6:24 No man can serve two masters: for either he
will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and
despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
'The life of
discipleship can only be maintained so long as nothing is allowed to come
between Christ and ourselves-- neither the law, nor personal piety, nor even
the world. The disciple always looks only to his master, never to Christ and
the law. Christ and religion. Christ and the world. He avoids all such notions
like the plague. Only by following Christ alone can he preserve a single eye.
His eye rests wholly on the light that comes from Christ, and has no darkness
or ambiguity in it. As the eye must be single, clear, and pure in order to keep
light in the body, as hand and foot can receive light from no other source save
the eye, as the foot stumbles and the hand misses its mark when the eye is dim,
as the whole body is in darkness when the eye is blind; so the follower of
Christ is in the light only so long as he looks simply to Christ and at nothing
else in the world. Thus the heart of the disciple must be set upon Christ
alone. If the eye sees an object which is not there, the whole body is deceived.
If the heart is devoted to the mirage of the world, to the creature instead of
the Creator, the disciple is lost.'
TRUTH.
Read it again,
please.
NOTHING can be
allowed to come between us and CHRIST and yet we allow so much to do just that,
and not just occasionally but all the time. Our excuse…. we have to live don't
we? And by 'live' we mean we have to deal with the law, personal piety, the
world, religion. But Christ's truth is that HE and HE alone must be looked to
FIRST and foremost and everything else looked to only AFTER Christ. If we follow Christ FIRST He will be in all
we do. If we try and follow other things
with Christ as an afterthought and not a forethought our eye is far from
single. Yes, we have to live our lives that includes- work, laws, people, all
sorts of situations, but we MUST NOT put anything BEFORE or on PAR with
CHRIST. We look to our jobs, our friends
and family, our traditions, our pleasure, our contentment, our own physical,
mental, emotional needs- FIRST- all too
often and we sneak Christ in there asking perhaps for His help with our lives,
all the while NOT choosing Him first at all!
Our eyes are far from single and Christ is trying to teach us that HE
comes first because the truth is, all things - all our needs, all true
contentment, all true pleasure, all true love, all the true dealings that we
can possibly have can ONLY come from Him and everything else is in TRUTH a figment
of our imagination, a life we've created that isn't real in many, many ways,
but rather lies we've tried to make into truth.
Bonhoeffer has this
to say-
'Worldly possession
tend to turn the hearts of the disciples away from Jesus. What are we really
devoted to? That is the question. Are our hearts set on earthly goods? Do we
try to combine devotion to them with loyalty to Christ? Or are we devoted
exclusively to him? The light of the body is the eye, and the light of the
Christian is his heart. If the eye be dark how great is the darkness of the
body! But the heart is dark when it clings to earthly goods, for then, however
urgently Jesus may call us, his call fails to find access to our hearts. Our
hearts are closed, for they have already been given to another. As the light
cannot penetrate the body when the eye is evil, so the word of Jesus cannot
penetrate the disciple's heart so long as it is closed against it. The word is
choked like the seed which was sown among thorns, choked "with cares and
riches and pleasure of this life" (Luke 8:14).'
Bonhoeffer went on
to say-
'The singleness of
eye and heart corresponds to that "hiddenness" which knows nothing
but the call and word of Christ, and which consists in perfect fellowship with
him. How can the disciple have dealings with earthly goods and yet preserve this
singleness of heart? Jesus does not forbid the possession of property in
itself. He was man, he ate and drank like his disciples, and thereby sanctified
the good things of life. These necessities, which are consumed in use and which
meet the legitimate requirements of the body, are to be used by the disciple
with thankfulness.
Earthly goods are
given to be used, not to be collected.
Hoarding is
idolatry.
But where are we to
draw the line between legitimate use and unlawful accumulation? Let us reverse
the word of Jesus and our question is answered: "Where thy heart is, there
shall thy treasure be also." Our
treasure may of course be small and inconspicuous, but its size is immaterial;
it all depends on the heart, on ourselves. And if we ask how we are to know
where our hearts are, the answer is just as simple-- everything which hinders
us from loving God above all things and acts as a barrier between ourselves and
our obedience to Jesus is our treasure,
and the place where our heart is.
But Jesus knows that
the heart of man hankers after a treasure and so it is his will that he should
have one. But this treasure is to be sought in heaven, NOT ON EARTH. Earthly
treasures soon fade, but a treasure in heaven lasts for ever.
Our hearts have room
only for one all embracing devotion, and we can only cleave to one Lord. Every
competitor to that devotion must be hated. As Jesus says, there is no
alternative-- either we love God or we hate him. We are confronted by an
"either--or": either we love God, or we love earthly goods. If we
love God, we hate the world and if we love the world, we hate God.
We shall indignantly
repudiate the suggestion that we hate God, and will be firmly convinced that we
love him, whereas by trying to combine love for him with love for the world, we
are turning our love for him into hatred. And then we have lost the single
eyes, and our heart is no longer in fellowship with Jesus. Our deliberate
intentions make no difference to the inevitable result: Ye cannot serve two
masters, if ye be followers of Jesus Christ.'
*
My take-
This man's insight
is amazing.
I really like this--
'Earthly goods are given to be used, NOT to be collected.' And this- 'Hoarding is idolatry.' And before we shake our heads and claim that
we aren't hoarders simply because we've been exposed to television shows about
the EXTREME hoarders, take a look at your closets, your storage places, your
attics, your garages, your shelves, your cupboards and cabinets. Look closely at all those things and ask
yourself are you using, or collecting? Often when we collect we do so with the
idea that we'll use things someday. Sometimes when we collect we do so because
we are making investments in the future, keeping things for a bit of security
should times ever get hard for us and we need to sell them. This reveals LACK
of faith in God. We collect things
because they're pretty and hold some sort of attraction for us, and not
everything collected has to be valuable. If we are putting our affections in
THINGS it is taking our affection from CHRIST.
We have choices to make and we make them every day. Do we make the
choice to put Christ first or ourselves?
Truth-
Mat 6:21 For where your treasure is, there will your
heart be also.
And it is true
turned around- where our heart is, that's where are treasure is.
Is there ANYTHING
you possess that you would hate to lose? It's easy for us to say yes to that,
because we hold our possessions dear. Now we have to ask ourselves how dear are
we holding things. Things we've COLLECTED.
The earthly good we have been given.
I really do believe
it is true - 'Earthly good are given to be used, not to be collected.'
'hoard
/hôrd/
|
Noun
A store of money
or valued objects, typically one that is secret or carefully guarded.
|
|
Verb
Amass (money or
valued objects) and hide or store away.
|
Pasted
from <https://www.google.com/search?q=hoard&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a>
'
And that our keeping
store of our money and objects, guarded or secret is IDOLATRY, and we all know
how God feels about idolatry.
Please LORD help us
to learn, help us to have a deeper comprehension of Your word. Help us LORD, we
would have YOU to be our all in all. We want our treasure in HEAVEN, not here
in anything on earth. We don't want to be caught up in idolatry. We don't want
to be collecting and not using!
Help us LORD.
Save us LORD.
Forgive us LORD.
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