God sends away empty those full of themselves

I am not opposed of abundance, thinking that richness is God's blessing. No, really. Materials we have is God's blessings. But, reading the Time Magazine article about the "evangelical" movement who promote searching, digging one's own abundance really gets my attention. Motivation is very important for people to go to church and to commune. When finding wealth on earth is our motivation, we should ask ourselves whom we worship at the first place.

Okay, I might be unequally treating people based on what their wealth, while God would seen them equal, Jesus died for rich people too, as much as He did for me. I don't consider myself rich, when talking about wealth, what we have, how much money we have, but I consider myself rich in convidence that God will provide, and what He gave me is (and will be) enough for me. And I have seen how world's kind of wealth had sometimes blindfolded our hearts towards other people, or whatever else going on in the world, although, it could be a blessing for other people (through philanthrophy or charity). But when it comes to finding money and being consumed to the goods of the good old world for our own benefit, when wealth become our first nature that replaces desire to glorify God, I would say that covers the dirty word greed.

Beside, what does it mean for us to own things more than we need when we know that the world is full of people who even struggle to live, and still, thinking about ourselves. Our world has been build on the act of consuming. That's all we do, consuming and consuming. More room in the house, more cars, more couches, more garages, more clothes, one TV for every room, more, more, more. Instead of seeing the earth as resources worth protecting, we have been consuming it as if we have more than what we have. How could one species on earth misinterpreted the word of God so bad that we missed the word "stewardship" and letting ourselves drawn in the action of consuming and consuming that creates a great deal of imbalance, not just in nature, but also in other people's lives, that we may not see from the horison, but does exist, where people do not even have one piece of cloth to cover them, or think that they were lucky to eat a bowl of corn. Meanwhile, we're so eager to ask God for more and more wealth to come to us. That. gets. me.

It's true that God will bless us more (and He also asked us to "test" him on thithing, that we will receive more than we need), but we need more than just money, or materials, or things; there's more joy to give than to receive. May be it's time to ask "What would Jesus do?" in time when inequality, imbalance, social injustice, are living prosperously in the world that is getting overcrowded?

To me, Jesus was the most radical person in his time, who opposed to be "religious" and to follow the "rules" just because it was a tradition. He was the one who stood up for the poor, helped the helpless, challenged authority because he knew what was right. He sets up a new rule: love, love, and only love. Where is love when we are searching for things for our own benefit, first and foremost?