Luke 16:13, “No servant 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.” Luke 12: 21 So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.”
The Parable of the Rich Fool; Jesus tells of a rich man who had such great "fruits and goods" that he had no room for them. His solution; Luke 12:18, "And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods." However, God had other plans; Luke 12:20, "But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?"
“Then whose will those things be?” God asked. We might well ask ourselves the question, “If Christ should come today, whose would all my possessions be?” How much better to use them for God today than to let them fall into the devil's hands tomorrow! We can lay up treasure in heaven with them now, and thus be rich toward God. Or we can squander them on our flesh, and from the flesh reap corruption."
[Believer's Bible Commentary]
For the last 25 years or so I have accumulated too much stuff. I did rather well with real estate and turned my profit into inventory. I’m now owned by a ton of cabbage known as jewelry, hundreds of strands of beads and turquoise nuggets and more. Every time I travel from my winter home to my summer home and back I load boxes of stuff into my van. Some I pay to store year-round. I’m tied down weekends during the summer in my little shop rather than traveling around my beloved Arizona. I wholesale every chance I get but still too much stuff. That said, the last two years I’ve bought very little inventory and my bead board is getting thinned out.
Each summer I internalize this verse increasingly. Matthew 6:21, “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” In my case is where my treasure is I’m held ransom. Too many years of investment in time and money…
Our life is frittered away by detail... simplify, simplify.
[Henry David Thoreau]
As for the ton of cabbage, an excerpt from THE ISLANDERS - A Sufi Legend told by Idries Shah
“I want to learn to swim.”
“Do you want to make a bargain about it?”
“No. I only have to take my ton of cabbage.”
“What cabbage?”
“The food which I will need on the other island.”
“There is better food there.”
“I don’t know what you mean. I cannot be sure. I must take my cabbage.”
“You cannot swim, for one thing, with a ton of cabbage.”
“Then I cannot go. You call it a load. I call it my essential nutrition.”
“Suppose, as an allegory, we say not ‘cabbage’ but ‘assumptions,’ or ‘destructive ideas’?” (in my case cabbage = inventory)
“I am going to take my cabbage to some instructor who understands my needs.”
“Do you want to make a bargain about it?”
“No. I only have to take my ton of cabbage.”
“What cabbage?”
“The food which I will need on the other island.”
“There is better food there.”
“I don’t know what you mean. I cannot be sure. I must take my cabbage.”
“You cannot swim, for one thing, with a ton of cabbage.”
“Then I cannot go. You call it a load. I call it my essential nutrition.”
“Suppose, as an allegory, we say not ‘cabbage’ but ‘assumptions,’ or ‘destructive ideas’?” (in my case cabbage = inventory)
“I am going to take my cabbage to some instructor who understands my needs.”
[http://veracity24.tumblr.com/post/23158409428]
Less is more! Less is to be rich towards God as more time is freed up just to be in His presence.
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