Where's your focus?

Nope, not that focus.

I'm talking about where your head spends most of its time. What you think about every single day, which creature lives in your worry-pond. For many of us it's money.

How often today have you thought about money? This week? Worried about it? Counted it? Wished you could win it? Dreamed about what you'd do if you had lots of it?

I read a very lengthy article this weekend on how churches and Christianity have dived headfirst into the marketing scene. How money has become a gigantic thing, bigger than the gospel, bigger than those around you, bigger even than God. Mega-churches, mega-book deals, mega-money-making conferences and programmes, mega-budgets, mega-salaries for the mega-pastors - while just down the road a homeless shelter has to close its doors due to lack of funds.

(As an aside, I heard of one mega-church in the USA that keeps a tithe-records room. If you want to do business with someone, you first go check out their tithe records, and only if they're up-to-date with a full 10 percent or more, do you go into a blessed business dealing with them... Scary!)

The article also talked about our personal relationship to money as Christians. How far we've come from the no possessions, everything in common first church groups in Acts. Those groups that sold everything they had and distributed the cash to the needy. Yet today we're hoarding, we spend on "little" luxuries, plan for retirement (as the article says, "who ever heard of God's people retiring in the New Testament?"), put away for our rainy day - when right alongside us are the poor and needy that Jesus implored us to care for.

I had to pause and do some very hard thinking at that point. Sure, I'm not rich. We struggle, but we have our needs met. We even have the option to go into debt with the bank to cover things our eyes desire. It's all me, me, me when the salary arrives each month - what do I need to do with the money for ME this month, what extras can I buy for ME?

And to take it a step further - would I have the same reaction as the rich young man did if God asked me to sell all I had, give the money to the poor, and follow Him? "But Lord, what will we sit on if I sell the lounge suite? But Lord, I need the freezer, the TV (both of them), a bed, a computer, that small stockpile of possessions? Perhaps You just want me to sell the things in the garage that I haven't used in years? Or should I give them away, or something? You can't really expect me to have NOTHING, can you?"

What would people say if I sold everything, if I gave it all away to the poor? That I was being stupid not to make a plan and a future for my son? That I am naieve, living with my head in the clouds, not making sense?

Do I REALLY, truly trust God to supply my needs if giving it all up is what He'd require of me?

Paying lipservice to Christianity, being good and nice and kind - that's easy. But REALLY living what Jesus taught. That's just plain difficult. It goes against all safe and logical action, it recognizes the temporary status of this planet and another kingdom not of this world, it defies worldly economics.

I look around me and see folk living in places and manners that I wouldn't want to. The bergies I ran into on Friday beg for meals and booze. They sleep on the street, shivering in the awful cold we can't seem to get out of. But they're as much God's children as I am. What should I be doing for them? What if I end up like them?

What if I end up like them?????

I like my little comfy place. I like my stuff. I don't like not knowing what will happen next. I like to know what I'm eating for lunch. I like having my own car, my own bed, my own, MY own...

Could I really, truly give it all up for God? I don't know. I honestly don't know.

(I shared these thoughts with the staff for worship this morning - didn't go down well, I'm afraid)