FOOLISHNESS WITH MATERIAL GOODS


MONDAY, TWENTY NINTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIMEE

Eph 2:1-10; Ps 100; Lk 12:13-21

We are Accountable to God

We are unaware of God’s many investments in us and for our salvation. From the beginning of creation, God already made his plan for our good and made all things for the good of man and woman. God’s wonderful provisions for the well-being of the human person prompt the psalmist to ask why God has a vested interest in man. Divine provision for us spans both the physical and spiritual realms. God made us for himself and has spared nothing for the good and well-being of man and woman, whom he made in his own image. We must pay careful attention to the arrangement of things in the universe to comprehend universal divine providence. Psalm 24 notes how great the name of God is exalted in all the earth. Evidence of God’s greatness and his wonderful providence for us abounds in all the earth. But they are visible only to the eyes of the faithful. The Psalmist invites us to joyfully cry out to the Lord for the wonders of his provision. “Cry out joy to the Lord, all the earth. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come before him, singing for joy.” Many of us take for granted that nature works together to support our lives here on earth. For this we must always thank God and praise his goodness.

Our self-interest and ignorance of God’s love and care have a common cause: our lack of faith in God’s word. We are mistaken in valuing material things over God’s word. We neglect the giver of all things, even our lives, and cling to the perishable. Our attachment to these passing things blinds us to the greater and more enduring spiritual things with which God has blessed us. The mistaken values we place on visible things cause us to sin against God. This describes the way of the world; Saint Paul reminded the Ephesians, and all of us, to thank God for delivering us from the worldly corruption. “You were dead through the crimes and the sins in which you used to live when you were following the way of this world, obeying the ruler who governs the air, the spirit who is at work in the rebellious.” Before we came to faith, we were like every other person out in the world, subjects of damnation. The infinite love of God has called us out of darkness into his wonderful light. “But God loved us with so much that he was generous with his mercy:  when we were dead through our sins, he brought us to life with Christ—it is through grace that you have been saved—and raised us up with him and gave us a place with him in heaven, in Christ Jesus.” This is the spiritual bounty we have received from God in Christ. We must praise him always.

To live and not worship and praise God is to be subject to demonic spirits of evil and darkness ruling the world. They blind many people with material goods, causing ignorance of God and the grace of salvation in Jesus Christ in many. Our Lord warns us with a parable to be careful not to be blinded by these earthly things and forget the eternal things. “There was once a rich man who, having had a good harvest from his land, thought to himself, “What am I to do? I have not enough room to store my crops.” Then he said, “This is what I will do: I will pull down my barns and build bigger ones, and store all my grain and my goods in them, and I will say to my soul: My soul, you have plenty of good things laid by for many years to come; take things easy, eat, drink, have a good time.” But God said to him, “Fool! This very night the demand will be made for your soul; and this hoard of yours, whose will it be then?” He made all the wonderful plans for his material goods without God. He did not thank God, who gave him the riches and the bountiful harvest. He did not bother to include God in his plan for the future, which only God knows and can bless for us. We are like this man in our lives. We glory only in material blessings. For this, we do not even praise him. We remain oblivious to the spiritual blessings he had given us in Christ Jesus even before the foundation of the earth. For this, also, we do not praise or glorify his name. We are called to be grateful for God’s wonderful blessings, both physical and spiritual.

Let us pray: Almighty ever-living God, grant that we may always conform our will to yours and serve your majesty in sincerity of heart. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. 

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