• Join us for men’s ministry tomorrow morning at 8:00, breakfast then this discussion: has suburbia turned us into the third kind of seed in the parable of the sower, so life is now “the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desire for other things”? If you’re in your 20s and 30s, years of building reputation, accumulating wealth and great deals from Costco, how do you test to see if your life is bearing any fruit? Maybe you’ve lost perspective on the question entirely. Maybe accumulation has become, by some sleight of hand and heart, synonymous with fruitfulness?
• All of this came to mind as I tried, and failed, to solve a plumbing leak in an upstairs bathroom. It easily preoccupied my mind, enough that I spent a couple hours two evenings in a row stripping the old caulk out of the bathtubs and doing, I must say, a very nice job on the new stuff. And then this morning, alas, water downstairs again.
• So, how does it work? How do you have real things in your life that must be fixed, and fixed now, without letting those things take practical possession of your heart? It’s the old saying, “you don’t own your possessions; your possessions own you.” How do you own stuff in this world, which we all do (some of us, very nice stuff), without becoming enslaved to what will one day just be a bunch of junk in the garage?
• Be prepared for an answer that challenges you. There’s a reason Jesus chose to not own anything. When they cast lots for his possessions, they didn’t have to open the casino for very long. What does it look like to follow him?