What an awesome Sunday! I hope you enjoyed Skittle Theology and thanks for sharing your Skittles! Remember, your heavenly dad can get you a 5 lb bag anytime!

Today’s passage is the same text from yesterday’s message, but even this morning as I was having my S.O.A.P. time, God was faithful to show me new things and challenge my life in new ways. The word that kept coming to mind this morning was “simplify”. As I was reading in verse 19, “do not store … treasures”. The idea of storing things is fairly pervasive in our culture, just look around in Cinco Ranch and throughout Katy. There’s a ton of storage space. I wonder what’s in all those storage rooms. Stuff that is just sitting, waiting, collecting dust because we believe that our future will be better, more secure, and more comfortable because of stuff we’ve stored up! Closets in our homes seem to get larger and larger, becoming a key selling point when we purchase a new home. Why? Well for me, I guess it is because I have so much stuff! So I need to store my stuff up for tomorrow when I might use it!

Seasonally, Gail and I go through our closet and take out what we don’t wear (or what doesn’t fit), what we don’t need or what is just taking up space. Pretty soon all that stuff that we are storing becomes stuff that costs us time and money just to keep around, not to mention the clutter. But potentially more damaging is what it does to my spirit; it can become a source of pride and worse, a place where I put my hope and confidence about the future.

Richard Foster, in his book “Simplicity” writes, “Simplicity is the only thing that sufficiently reorients our lives so that possessions can be genuinely enjoyed without destroying us. Without simplicity we will either capitulate to the “mammon” spirit of this present evil age, or we will fall into an un-Christian legalistic asceticism. Both lead to idolatry. Both are spiritually lethal. … The spiritual discipline of simplicity provides the needed perspective. Simplicity sets us free to receive the provision of God as a gift that is not ours to keep and can be freely shared with others. Once we recognize that the Bible denounces the materialist and the ascetic with equal vigor, we are prepared to turn our attention to the framing of a Christian understanding of simplicity.”

Let us all embrace simplicity so that we may give and receive with great joy.