The Way You Live

Meditations on the Sermon on the Mount

March 25, 2020

The Way You Live

Don’t store up treasures here on earth, where moths eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal.

Matthew 6:19

Jen Hatmaker’s wrote her book, 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess, after a visitor commented on the extravagance of her family’s upper middle-class home. 7 is the true story of how Jen took seven months, identified seven areas of excess, and made seven simple choices to fight back against overindulgence. Jen’s visitor was a kairos moment for her. She was able to step back and examine the priorities of her life. Her experiment revealed to her that she had been sucked into the American dream where happiness and success means more, bigger, and better.

Sometimes it seems like the American capitalist economy is a giant Ponzi scheme. Economists want the daily stock market reports to show an increase, never a decrease. Even remaining unchanged is not a good option. In order for the markets to increase, consumers have to spend more and more money; therefore, industries continually advertise bigger and better gizmos to replace the gizmos we already have and that work just fine. If we all follow Jen’s example and drastically reduce our spending, the house of cards will come tumbling down. Or so it seems.

Over and against the reality of our times, Jesus teaches us, “Don’t store up treasures here on earth, where moths eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal. Store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal. Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be” (Matthew 6:19-21).

My Takeaway: I want this prayer of Paul to be the reality of my life:

“So we keep on praying for you, asking our God to enable you to live a life worthy of his call. May he give you the power to accomplish all the good things your faith prompts you to do. Then the name of our Lord Jesus will be honored because of the way you live, and you will be honored along with him. This is all made possible because of the grace of our God and Lord, Jesus Christ” (2 Thessalonians 1:11-12, emphasis mine).

Sē’lah

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(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com. The BLOG is also available on Amazon Kindle, by subscription.

Copyright © 2020 by Alex M. Knight

Publications by Alex M. Knight:

• Seeking the Life in Christ, Meditations on the New Testament and Psalms has been published and is now available at Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.

• The second edition of  First Think – Then Pray is available on Amazon Kindle.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.