Ephesians 5:15-17: Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.

The most valuable thing that we own is our life. There is no amount of money that can be placed on our life, for if we are not alive to enjoy it, money is useless. In fact, money is only useful to the extent that it can purchase more life for us. What does this mean? Well, certainly it does not mean that money can necessarily extend my life in a chronological sense. Perhaps with money I would be able to have better health care and better nutrition, and all other things being equal, could potentially extend my life chronologically. But all other things are not equal, and so this is not always the case. But the other sense in which money can purchase life for us is that it can save us time. For instance, I did not engineer the laptop that I can writing on, nor did I build the condo that I live in. But, I did spend money on both, so that I would not have to spend my time creating those things. Because of money, I am able to purchase the labor of someone else (either goods or services) so that I can spend my time how I want. This is really basic economics. Everyone in an economy has certain talents and skills to be able to produce goods/services more efficiently and/or better than the next person. Because of this it doesn’t make much sense for me to spend a year building a laptop or 2 years building a house, when I can pay someone else who can build the same things much more efficiently, thereby allowing me to spend more time on the things that I am good at.

Now what you see is that time is really just a measure of life. It is the breaking up of life into distinct measurable chunks if you will. And so ultimately, money and time really are just ways of representing life. Life is the true money and the true time. Money has no value without life. Time has no value without life. And so it is no surprise that when it comes to understanding our hearts, you can know everything there is to know about a man by what he spends his time and money on, for it is nothing more than what he spends his life on. What he spends his life on, that is what or who he worships.

Matthew 6:21 “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Is that not what this verse is saying? Whatever you value, as evidenced by what we spend our lives on, this is what we truly value! Our words really don’t mean that much. We can say we love Jesus, we can say we love people and care about the poor and care about injustice, but at the end of the day if our money and our time testify otherwise, then we are hypocrites and worthy of the strictest judgment! See, we don’t recognize how sinful and wicked we are because our western Christianity has relegated sin to cursing, drinking, dancing, having sex outside of marriage, and watching stuff you’re not supposed to watch. If we don’t cuss or drink, have the appearance of godly relationships and of course don’t kill anyone or otherwise break the laws of the land, then we are good Christian folk. While God still hates murder and cares about what comes out of our mouths, the bigger issue is the condition of our hearts and whether or not on a whole our hearts and entire lives are inclined toward God. The bottom line quesiton for us, is do we worship God or do we worship someone or something else? This is the measure of our righteousness.

The problem is that our hearts are wicked and we’d much rather be our own gods and spend our lives in the manner that we choose. We believe (as we have since the garden) that it would be better for us to determine what’s good for us. We have believed that somehow we know better than God what is ultimately good for us. And so it is no surpise that much of western Christianity is intensely and sickeningly self-centered and self-absorbed. From self-help to self-esteem sermons to our consumeristic mega churches to our “Christian” music with our “Christian” merchandise and and our “Christian” movies, we have created a “Christian” sub-culture geared towards pleasing the “Christian” masses. And to what avail? Is this how we are called to spend our lives in worshipping God and loving others? Shall we ride down the church escalator after service to the church coffee shop to sip lottes with our Christian friends discussing which of the church bands we like and dislike? Is this the sum of our Christian experience?

It is by the grace of God that our foolishness in how we spend the bulk of our lives is not immediately punished. Indeed it was for this foolishness that Christ endured the cross to take upon our just punishment so that by faith through his grace we would be spared of God’s wrath. But we have not be saved to continue in foolishness. Paul urges us in Ephesians to pay attention to how we walk. Paul urges us to be cognizant of how we spend our time and our lives. Why? Because the days are evil and the stakes are high and there is work to be done while we are yet here on earth. If we spend all of our lives on ourselves we will kill ourselves. Jesus says in Matthew 16 “For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” Far too often we hoard and protect our money our time and our lives, thinking that we are keeping it when we are in fact really losing it.

What would it look like for us to give our lives away? What would it look like for our paradigm of thinking to be other-focused? What if in thinking about the next house or job we get, our primary concern is how this will bless our neighbor and glorify God rather than increase our comfort? Would our testimony of how we treasure God be different than it is today? A life spent in sacrificial service to God and others may look like foolishness to the world but by God’s grace and wisdom we know that it is only then that we are genuinely living life abundantly.

I don’t go shopping for clothes that often, perhaps 2-3 times per year. I hadn’t been in a while so about a month ago I decided to head to the local shopping district. I was actually excited at the prospect of getting some new jeans and maybe some sweaters for the fall/winter. I first headed over to Nordstrom Rack where I spent well over an hour looking for jeans. Now I went looking for jeans because I didn’t really have very many nice pairs of jeans left in the closet. However as I began to shop, I discovered that I “needed” other things like blazers, ties, maybe a suit, even t-shirts for next summer. I found myself lost in the myriad of choices of things that I suddenly now realized that I needed. How could I have endured so long without such glaring needs?

I spent the next week and a half going to several stores in order to round out the “starting rotation” for my closet. But aside from my initial excitement it was far from enjoyable. Then I began to reflect on what I thought I needed. I found that it was very peculiar that I set out to fulfill some particular needs but as I began shopping other “needs” arose. And the question that I asked myself is what are truly needs? What are simply “nice-to-haves”? In the west we live in a culture where we are told that we need many things in order to give us happiness and satisfaction. Television, internet, magazines, billboards, and a host of other media tell us that we need this pill, or that food, or that job, or that gadget, or this service in order to finally transition from the brown grass to the green grass. If only I had that leather blazer, then I’d be set…

But then it occurred to me that our very definition of needs are screwed up. A need is something that arises out of necessity from our circumstance or situation. So for example, If I walk out outside naked in the cold my body will start to shiver giving rise to the awareness that I need some clothes. That is a real need. Or also, if I attend my friends wedding dressed in shorts and flip-flops and his family and friends stare at me in disgust, the need for dressier attire arises out of my socio-cultural circumstances. However, if I drive to the mall to pick up a pair of jeans, and see a blazer that I like, and need to come up with a reason to wear it, that is a want! How messed up have we become when we buy the marketer’s lie that we must shop to figure out what our needs are! Needs, by definition, should naturally arise. They should be apparent. Otherwise it’s not a need, just a want or a nice-to-have.

Imagine, how much time and anxiety would be save if we lived lives with a solid understanding of needs versus wants? What if we stopped wasting time trying to conjure up our needs and just allow life to dictate that naturally? What if we lived a life where we could be satisfied with what we truly need, and feel blessed when we get to have some of our nice-to-haves? The problem is that we’ve come to see nice-to-haves as needs, and in the land of endless opportunities and choice, many of us are just sadly miserable and confused.