We Are Living In A Material World

Madonna once coined the phrase "material girl". Others come to mind when you think of materialism. As Christians, being attached to stuff is IMO, the biggest hindrance to taking radical risks for the cause of Jesus. "It is hard for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven"....Jesus, as always, was perfect in his assessment....

Now I know that this is going to come a shock to many of you who know me. I'm big, white, cornbread, midwestern America. I'm a JesusPiperKellerDriscollite...I'm a desperate man in desperate need of a Savior. I'm passionate about my faith. I'm passionate about truth.

But I have to confess that I love reading Penelope Trunk's blog. It challenges me. She has a completely different worldview than me. She is not a Christian, although her website developer is. She is outspoken, opinionated, and un-afraid of what others might think. She's a risk taker. She's honest and transparent. When you are all of those things, I find you very interesting....

And her blog post today is on materialism. YOU have to read this. If you don't, you're weak and afraid. She offers some stinging insight and I wish that a pastor on Sunday morning had this kind of guts to say these things in the context of Biblical truth. Because, even though Penelope is not a believer, she's more Biblical than a good many Christians that I have met in 10 years...

Here's the money paragraph, but you have to read the whole thing...

It’s a cliché for a reason. If you have a very low-cost lifestyle and very few physical things that you treasure, you cannot really imagine a rug being pulled out from under you because you don’t own that great a rug anyway.

People think that what’s holding them back from taking risk is some big financial idea of stability and well being, but it’s really fear of losing your comfortable material life, whatever that is. Mine is so spare that I can easily replace it. even if we got bed bugs again.

How many Christians are living lives that are pathetic, shriveling, shrinking existences because they are trapped by their stuff....

You can learn a lot from a Braazen Careerist...I hope someday that we get to talk about the Gospel....