10.01.07

Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness! No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. - Matthew 6:19-24 NKJV.

But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. - Matthew 6:33 NKJV.

The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. - John 10:10 NKJV.

In August, investigators for the Pentagon found that some things that appeared to be priority-shipping items were only scams. A business in South Carolina shipped a couple of metal washers, which cost 19 cents per piece to a military base located in Texas. The shipping costs for those two metal washers were truly astronomical. It cost $999,798 to ship those two little washers! But it does not stop there, because the business scammed a total of $20.5 million from the Defense Department in fraudulent shipping charges!! This scam was made possible by the Defense Department having a “priority” shipping policy. When invoices for shipping were labeled “priority” the policy was to pay the invoice without question or investigation.

What may appear to be a priority or is said to be a priority in your life may not actually be either, they may actually just be scams depriving you of life. One of those supposed priorities is to have money to buy things, it is called, materialism. We are continually bombarded with advertising in all forms of media to buy this, to buy that, to have something, or to own something. Almost from the time that we are born, we have this constant input of the materialistic world implanted into our hearts and minds.

Why is materialism a scam robbing you of life? Because your focus, your energies are placed toward obtaining those material things. But once you have all those material things that you have worked so hard to have, do you have more life? No. I would submit to you that after you have all of the material world that any human being could possibly want, that you still would not have any more life. Actually, you will have less life, because all of your focus and energies that you have placed upon the material could have been used to gain more life by putting first the Kingdom of God.

Money and things can never buy love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23) which is the fruit of the Holy Spirit; and what God wants each of His children to have. What is it that you have been trying to buy with your life? Maybe it is time to place your focus, your energies, in a new direction that will bring you far greater returns. Stop being scammed by the world, the flesh, and the devil. Put the Lord first in your life, and He will reward you with life, real life beyond anything this world can give.