SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR
9/9/2015 11:18 PM
My Worship Time Focus:
Luxury PT-1
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Amos 4:1-3
Message of the
verses: “1 Hear this word, you cows of Bashan who
are on the mountain of Samaria, Who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, Who
say to your husbands, "Bring now, that we may drink!" 2 The Lord GOD
has sworn by His holiness, "Behold, the days are coming upon you When they will take you away
with meat hooks, And the last of you with fish hooks. 3 “You will go out
through breaches in the walls, Each one straight before her, And you will be
cast to Harmon," declares the LORD.”
We want to look at the first sub-point this evening under
this first main point entitled “luxury,” and this first sub-point is entitled
“What is luxury?”
Dr. Wiersbe writes the following as he introduces this
subject of luxury: “Most of the luxuries
and many of the so-called comforts of life are not only not indispensable, but
positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.” So wrote Henry David Thoreau in his classic
book Walden; and his friend Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in his own journal, ‘Our
expense is almost all for conformity. It
is for cake that we all run in debt.’
Let’s seek to answer some questions about luxury.”
What is Luxury? If
we want to define this word luxury we have to go to the Latin word from where
it comes and find out that the word means “excessive.” This word use to speak of plants that grew
abundantly, however it then begin to refer to people who have an abundance of
money, or time and comfort in which they use for themselves as they live in
aimless leisure. An example of this
would be when you ask for some kind of deluxe service.
Dr. Wiersbe writes these very important words: “It isn’t a sin to be rich or to have the
comforts of life, if this is God’s will for you. Abraham and David were wealthy men. Yet they used what they had for God’s
glory. In the eyes of people in the
Third World, most of the citizens of the Western world, including the poor, are
very wealthy. What the Western world
considers necessities are luxuries to the citizens of other nations: things like thermostat-controlled heat and
air conditioning, refrigerators, automobiles, adequate medical care,
telephones, and abundantly available electricity and fuel.”
Now we have to realize that there is a big difference
between owing abundant possessions and having those possessions own us. We should be able to help others with the
wealth that we have, people like missionaries who want to go to places to serve
people in telling them about the Lord Jesus Christ. Dr. Wiersbe writes “A sign in an exclusive
clothing store read, ‘If you must ask the price of our garments, you can’t
afford them.’ People who live in luxury
don’t bother to ask the prices. They
don’t care how much they spend so long as they get what they want.”
There was a really good example in my morning Spiritual
Diary from the 18th chapter of Revelation which speaks of the
destruction of Babylon, both the city and also the system and there were
certain people groups who actually mourned over the destruction of Babylon
because they were losing their wealth and this was more bothersome to them than
the fact that they were about to lose their souls. Jesus said “What does it profit a man to own
the whole earth and lose his soul?”
We will continue to look at this subject of luxury in our
next SD from Amos chapter four.
9/9/2015 11:52 PM
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