Attitude to riches.

I had such an awesome time at church today. I love it when the sermon comes out like God is speaking to you directly, I guess he was. The priest spoke about the way we look at money and used Jesus’ temptations in the desert as a reference. Jesus spent 40 days and 40 nights in the desert fasting and praying and it was there that he was tempted by the devil to turn stones into bread if he was hungry. To this he commented that Satan’s temptations may seem so trivial, I mean seriously, turning stones into bread??? That’s like grade 1 stuff to Jesus and he could have so easily done it. However, Jesus did not make a decision based on the now because he knew that succumbing to the small temptation had even bigger connotations in the long run. It’s the same in our lives, we often fall for the small temptations, which then keep recurring until we are engrossed in a life of sin. Then Jesus was asked to bow down to Satan and in return, he would rule over everything, in essence, he would be like God, the same catch phrase used by the serpent to Eve in Genesis. The devil understands that people love power and are greedy enough to do anything to attain it. That is why people are easily conned. When someone presents a deal to them, they see the amount of money that they could possibly make, then start planning to buy fancy cars, houses and all and forget to even analyse the consequences of that deal, so much that we fall into a trap through stupidity. We are so caught up in making lots of money overnight but are not willing to work for it. There is nothing wrong with being rich, but our attitude towards money will change the outcome of a lot of situations. In the priest’s words, ‘you can’t climb a ladder with hands in your pocket.’ Then he told a story of a king who would celebrate his birthday every year by calling his people and doing something for them. So every year there was a couple that would ask him for land, and this happened every year. They were never satisfied with what they had, till the king called them and said he can’t keep giving them land, so he asked them to make a circle around as big a portion of land as they could in an hour, and everything in that circle would be theirs. And so the husband gladly did it. He ran as fast as he could, trying to get as much as he can in the circle. Houses, cattle, cars, whatever. And yes he made it in an hour, but as soon as he returned, he collapsed and died!!! After all that! With this story he illustrated that we are so busy burning ourselves to gain riches, yet our spiritual lives are like engines that are about to knock! Lent is that time where you confront yourself and make a decision to slow down and prioritise God’s way. What is our attitude to riches and does money take precedence in our lives before God?