The Sin of Wanting More...

Sometimes the message is found in what is not said...

A good church-goer asks Jesus a very important question: "What do I have to do to go to heaven?" Jesus answers, "Keep the commandments". And then he lists four of the commandments to which the man replies, "I have done all of this ever since I was a little boy". Jesus then says, "Great! Then you just need to do one more thing--go and give all your stuff away to the poor and then you can come and follow me". The man then walks away sadly because he has a lot of stuff. So what's missing?

The four commands that Jesus lists are #'s 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9. He leaves out the first four that deal with our relationship with God and he leaves out #10 which has to do with "wanting". The first four commands and the last command are related. When we are rightly related to God--we no longer need "stuff". We no longer need to need stuff.

May I learn to be satisfied with the blessing of the day that God has already provided...without wanting more...