Greed is Not Good

As Stewards of all that God has entrusted us it is important that we base our life and decisions on the Rock solid foundations given to us by God Himself. This sounds like an obvious statement but given our 'state' of mind, body and culture greed can creep in to even the most well intentioned of us.

In the 1980s movie Wall Street the villain, Gordon Ghekko's famous line is, "Greed, for the lack of a better word, is good". But greed is not good. Yet all of us are impacted by our own fallen nature and the culture in which we live and the prevailing mindset of our culture would say that "greed is good". Is there an antidote to a life of being blown by the winds of culture and the pursuit of fools gold? Yes. The antidote is found in the life of devotion to truth and love found in community. Something rarely found today. It may sound simplistic but Christ calls us to imitate His love and the Paul admonishes us to imitate him in I Corinthians 11:1, "Imitate me as I imitate Christ". A good question to start the day with is, "Whose thinking am I imitating?"

When thinking about 'how we live' and the decisions we must make I am convinced it's not so much "what would Jesus do" that should direct us, but 'what would Jesus think' and how can I imitate His thinking? That's what Sheldon wanted when he wrote those famous words. He wanted the church to "think Christianly", and his book was a reminder of how the church was to think about the sojourner and the poor.

How do we 'think' about money, education, family, the latest scandal on Wall Street and our 'calling' in light of the economic crisis we find our world? There are many unemployed and frightened people around us who need love and truth and today's global crisis may be an opportunity like few others to point friends and family to 'the' Truthgiver who brings comfort and right thinking in plenty and little.

Grace and peace.