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22. Are You Materialistic?
Is it possible to be more materialistic when we are
young, poor, and consumed with surviving? Yes, and in
this we should be very careful about our attitude.
When we are older, more set, and things come to us so
much easier, can we be less materialistic? Yes. Then,
we can give, easily, out of our love and abundance.
Remember: it's the attitude, not the amount of
things. Consider the Apostle Paul's warning (I Timothy
6: 10):
''For the love of money is the root of all evil;
which while some have coveted after, they have erred
from the faith, and pierced themselves through with
many sorrows.
"
His condemnation does not apply only
to large sums. To love a dollar is as sinful as to love a
million.
It
is not the amount involved but the attitude
that is wrong.
His rebuke falls equally on both the rich and the
poor. In truth, I have never heard anyone describe
himself in the first person as being too materialistic.
Only the collective group guilt expression is used,
"Well
were too materialistic"
(meaning
you7e
too
materialistic, not
J).
Are you more materialistic than I,
because you have more things? No, it's ,not the number
of things, but rather the attitude toward them.
''Materialism'fs
perhaps an overworked word.
It
can
mean material betterment away from a miserable
existence and a premature death. We in America are
the inheritors of the genuine revolution to restore
material betterment. After all, in Columbus' day, if you
owned a chair and a single change of clothing, you were
considered non-poor.
Let us never forget that, during all of recorded
history, it has been only in the last 300 years, that man
has been able to do what he never could before: more
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