Self-Indulgence & Taking Life Easy

I mentioned how much I enjoyed Robert Fraser’s book Marketplace Christianity in a previous post. He has many lessons in the book that spoke directly to me. One was from Luke. Being the Luke-ophile I am, I could not resist passing on some of Robert’s thoughts. If you get the book you can find more about this topic on pages 157-158.

I think from a child I always dreamed of retiring early. It is the American dream. Work a little play a lot. I wanted that so bad. It affected the way I thought about work. Work being a necessary evil, was something I dreaded and trudged through. NOT, enjoyed, improved, mastered, and produced much valued in. Needless to say I was wrong. But I digress.

Our culture promotes self-indulgence and living lives of ease. When we wake up Monday morning we are looking forward to Friday. Luke talks about this in the parable of the rich fool.

Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”

And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’

“Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.” ‘

“But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’

“This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God Luke 12:15-21

From Marketplace Christianity, Robert writes..

But to seek a life of ease is to seek earthly reward instead of heavenly. It means we have ceased from our spiritual calling. It makes sense that in Jesus’ parable of Luke 12, God took the rich man’s life – it no longer had any spiritual purpose.

What is my spiritual purpose. To take life easy, or to live a productive life of giving that glorifies God. Hmmmmm. Not to hard is it?