"Laying Up Treasure"

"For where your treasue is there will your heart be also" Matt.6:21

Today more than ever, we're able to aquire more than an abundance of things or stuff, because of easy credit. Our economy is dependant on consumer spending, so most of us have followed suit and tried to do our part in shoring up the walls of our ailing capitalistic system. Most, if not all of us, have our closets, attics and garages crammed full of things we've garnered over the last thirty years or more. Some things are perhaps valued family heirlooms or just memorabilia from our vast experiences and travels through the years. I know in my own case, much of what I have stored lacks any real value to me or will garner more than a few dollars in a yard sale. Growing up as a child, we were taught that if you didn't have the money in hand you couldn't buy. Somewhere through the years we've been seduced into believing we could buy now and pay later and buy we did! The current economic crisis in America has brought to light a new and disconcerting concern to me. Many are comparing this recession to that of the mid seventies. I remember the long lines at the gas pumps and the slow employment market. The recession of the mid seventies is the reason our family sold our home and relocated to the south. The sale of our home was enough to pay off the mortage and the note on our new 1978 Oldsmobile Cutless Wagon. The balance sufficently cleared all our debt and put a down payment on new residence in the state we were moving to and we began again to try and build the American dream. The present recession is much different. Many Americans are carrying more debt than ever in the history of our nation. Sadly for most, the level of their indebtedness makes the likelyhood of financial liberty appear nearly impossible. This country was built on the hopes that common men could work with their hands and build a life of substance for their families. Many of the people who settled and developed this country were Europeans who were offered freedom from debtors prisons if they were willing to leave their homeland and help in the development of America. It's took a little over two centuies to once again enslave the masses through financial bondage! They say, "if we fail to learn the lessons that history has taught us we are destined to repeat them. "Slowly our liberties have been eroded though our own desires to aquire physical treasure, enslaving ourselves and future generations to follow in the chains of financial bondage! How could we have let this happen? Most of us have been taught history! What once was deemed the ,"American Dream" has developed into an "Amercan Financial Nightmare." My concern as a Christ follower is, have we believers also been seduced by the world and sacrificed spiritual wealth for following after the dainties of living in a prosporous society? We cannot excuse ourselves, for God in his word forwarned us!