Scammed into Living for Less - Part I

The enemy’s tactic since day one has been to get you to accept abysmally less than God wants you to have. He accomplishes this by trying to stand between you and God, in an effort to block you from seeing the fullness of God that lies just ahead for you. In other words, he craftily attempts to cut off our view God’s bakery, so that we’ll ignorantly accept the bread crumbs he’s offering us. We see this from very early on in the history of mankind.

In everyone’s favorite Bible tale, the evil serpent stirs doubt regarding God’s instruction about not eating from the tree of knowledge of good & evil. This results in Adam and Eve going against God and eating the fruit anyhow (Genesis 3:1-7).

Let’s just think about that for a second.

Adam and Eve choose a piece of fruit, over the entire Garden of Eden. The serpent used what looked and perhaps even tasted good, to steer them away from what was good. In fact, he got them to trade in absolute perfection, for something they thought might possibly be good.

Yikes.

It’s natural to roll your eyes at Adam and (especially) Eve for causing the fall of mankind here. Why did they have to be disobedient and eat the fruit? God gave them one job...

Well, easy for us to say!

Over the next few posts, we’ll take a good look at some of the biggest schemes of life the enemy’s gotten us to buy into.

Trick #1:

#SecuringTheBag

From the time we reach pre-K, the world prepares us to start chasing “the bag" – or what we perceive as financial stability.

For some people, that requires working for a corporation 40+ hours a week until we hit our mid-60’s. For others, it means opting not to work for another person's company and, instead, becoming self-employed. No matter which path you take, though, your labor is ultimately either lining someone else’s pocket or padding your own.

Why should we view that as a problem?

God filled this planet with countless mesmerizing and fulfilling things. Yet instead of fully enjoying those, we spend the majority of our time living and working for the promise of money. We are accustomed to trading so much of our limited time here on this beautiful Earth, for mere pieces of paper.

Whether you’re financially stable and love what you do or not, I invite you to pause for a moment, and picture how life would look if there were no pressure to have money at all.

It’d mean unlimited time enjoying the home God placed you in and being with the people you love. It’d mean exploring the globe and discovering new things without having to pay companies at every turn, nor having to coax your employer into giving you the time off to do it.

In fact, the only job you’d have is using the spiritual gifts (1 Chorinthians 12:7), God’s already blessed you with in order to help and edify His people. You'd be working solely to give unto others and to build God's Kingdom here on Earth. That would be fine, since you wouldn’t have to worry about securing enough resources for yourself to live... In a world that was not ruled by money, you would get to simply live.

If I had to guess, that’s probably what the Garden of Eden looked like before the fall of mankind. I imagine that is the kind of peaceful living environment God had wanted for His children all along.

Instead of realizing most of this, we’re tricked into settling for slithers of tree bark that Satan has convinced society matters more than anything -- often even more than the precious human lives God has created. Most of us fail to detect it, but love of money truly is one of the enemy’s biggest tricks for keeping us preoccupied with self-interest throughout our lifespan.

God desires for us to, instead, understand that He is our lifeline and Source -- our ultimate provider. It is His desire that we would recognize Him as such. The sooner we do and elect to place our trust in Him -- rather than living lives that revolve around chasing money, resources, and worldly gains -- we will see Him provide for us in ways that slaving for money never could.

Lord God,

Help us to know that we don't have to rely on ourselves and our own work in order to get what we need. Help us to understand that You are faithful, and will work to meet every single one of our needs for us. Your Word promises this: "Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things [that you need] will be given to you as well." (Matthew 6:33) Enable us, God, to see that Your Son, Jesus, was and is living proof of the lengths that You will go to in order to provide for us. Change our hearts and minds to want to seek first Your Kingdom, rather than trying to build our owns kingdom here in this world -- for when we seek You, God, You ensure that we have everything we could ever need.

In Jesus's name,

Amen.