Having Two Legs: Grace

Friday, December 17, 2010

Defying Mammon

Here are some overlapping and complementary thoughts to my previous post on Francis Chan and Crazy Love, just in time for Christmas:

This is the opening to a recent article in Credenda:

"Idols are not kind. Idols are cruel and satanic. The root meaning of the word "satan" is accuser. Satan, the Devil, was the chief accuser of God's people (Job 1, Rev. 12:10), but every idol, every demon is some offspring of the Devil, accusers and manipulators all. Idols manipulate through guilt; they accuse their slaves and then gleefully watch them twist and cower in the wind.

Mammon is one such idol. Mammon brow beats his victims with accusations. And Mammon rears his ugly head at holidays and feasts and all occasions for buying and gift giving. Of course the frontal assault is the lust of the flesh and the pride of life. Don't you wish your breasts looked like this? Don't you wish your car looked like this? Don't you wish you were as cool as that guy on his iPhone? Shouldn't you have a Roth IRA with thousands of dollars in diversified mutual funds? And people envy and lust and charge up their credit cards vainly pursuing happiness with green paper and plastic and megabytes, ripping off their wives and children and grandchildren and the poor. And Jesus roundly condemns such slavery. Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth. Don't build bigger barns. Damn the American Dream. Tonight your life may be required of you. Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven. And where your treasure is, your heart will be also."

Read the rest here.

Brokenhearted Christians

"A truly Christian love, either to God or men, is a humble brokenhearted love. The desires of the saints, however earnest, are humble desires: their hope is a humble hope; and their joy, even when it is unspeakable, and full of glory, is a humble, brokenhearted joy, and leaves the Christian more poor in spirit, and more like a little child, and more disposed to a universal lowliness of behavior." - Jonathan Edwards (cited in Brothers, We are Not Professionals by John Piper, 117)