Jesus Money and Possessions Part 2

GUARDING AGAINST DEBT STRESS

A recent survey by the Associated Press and GFK found that 46% of Americans are stressed out by debt. The AP article went on to say that the average amount owed on credit cards alone was $3900. That’s down from $5600 last fall but still high. And it doesn’t include car loans or mortgages.

Why are we so stressed? Why are we carrying too much debt? Well perhaps it is because we failed to heed one of Jesus’ little known warnings. Then he (Jesus) said to them, "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions." (Luke 12:15 NIV)

Later on in the Bible, in his letter to the Colossian Church, the Apostle Paul warned that greed is equal to idolatry: putting our desire for money and possessions above our desire for God. Clearly our greed is costing us more than simple cash. It’s costing us our souls.

Obviously, our attitudes toward money and possessions are critical to our spiritual health. But we live in a spiritually caustic economic culture. Much of our economy is designed around stimulating or creating in us a sense of need for things that aren’t necessities, generating covetousness and greed and idolatry.

One of the courses we took in business school was marketing. In the early days companies created and advertised products that met needs. Now we create needs where none existed before. You don’t have to work very hard to sell a hammer to a carpenter. But you have to be very creative to sell him hair spray and a blow dryer. You have to make him think that he needs it.

How do advertisers do that? They know what makes us tick. They know what scares us, what moves us, what our unspoken longings and insecurities are. And they use it to make us think we need the stuff.

One of those ads caught me a few years back. It was an advertisement for a boat. I like boats. But I never thought that I needed one until they showed a dad fishing from his boat with his daughter. The caption said it all: “Because my wedding will be sooner than you think.” I have daughters. I want to stay connected to them. Ergo: I needed a boat! I couldn’t believe how that simple advertisement tugged on my heart!

Madison Avenue has learned to tap the oil fields of the human soul. Only the derricks are in our hip pockets. They know I don’t need a new boat to go fishing. They’re telling me I need a boat to be a father who never loses touch with his daughters! I have nothing against boats. But I know they won’t last. They won’t give me what I need the most.

It’s like the great theologian and sometime actress Jamie Lee Curtis said in an interview, “The biggest lesson is that nothing on the exterior will make me feel better. It may seem that way for a short time, but those feelings of inadequacy will surface as soon as that new purse (jeep, boat, or whatever) is no longer new.”

What do we need the most? We need a relationship with God the Father, a relationship that can only be found through faith in His Son Jesus Christ, who died for our sins so that our greatest debt – the debt of sin that we could never pay – would be wiped out. Now that’s what I call real stress free living.