personal development on Possessions

Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.

James 5:16 invites us to confess our sins so that we might be healed. Let us go before our Creator in humility and confession. Lord Almighty, we come to you in humility today. We have sought security...

Here’s a story about tithing - giving away 10% of one’s income, from of all places, Forbes magazine. In the article, the writer tells the story of Greg Gianforte, the founder, chairman and CEO of Rig...

Have you ever seen an episode of the A&E TV show Hoarders? It’s a show about perfectly normal-looking people who live in perfectly normal-looking houses who become overwhelmed by their possessions...

Holy God, we come to confession realizing that we are often aware of the big sins in our lives, but we ignore the sins we think are small. We ask Your forgiveness for times when we have been apathetic...

Let temporal things serve your use, but the eternal be the object of your desire.

Be less concerned with what you have than with what you are.

For all our time and attention, no matter how carefully we curate our stuff or how much we might enjoy ourselves along the way, we’re all merely stocking and staging someone else’s opportunity for bar...

Holy God, we come to You confessing that we never have enough. We are never satisfied with what You have given us. We look at others with envy and we want more, even when our homes are overflowing wit...

Almighty God of creation, please forgive us for the times when we’ve squandered the gifts you’ve given us. You give so freely, so abundantly, that we sometimes take your gifts for granted. For the tim...

Disturb us, Lord, when we are too pleased with ourselves; when our dreams have come true because we dreamed too little; when we arrived safely because we sailed too close to the shore. Disturb us, Lo...

When Jesus is truly our Lord, He directs our lives and we gladly obey Him. Indeed, we bring every part of our lives under His lordship - our home and family, our sexuality and marriage, our job or une...

Pastor: Truly, O God, you have been good to me. My troubles have been few, my blessings have been many, and you have given me this day to worship you. All: But I have stumbled, and my foot has slipp...

While American society is rich in goods, it is extremely time-poor. Many societies in the two-thirds world, by contrast, are poor in material possessions, by our standards, but they are rich in time. ...

They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread; and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. ...

God of the common and of the uncommon. You meet us in the ordinary routines of life–when we play and when we rest, while we work and while we worship. And You reveal yourself in the extraordinary, too...

Our days are numbered. One of the primary goals in our lives should be to prepare for our last day. The legacy we leave is not just in our possessions, but in the quality of our lives. What preparatio...

The vulnerability that leads to flourishing requires risk, which is the possibility of loss—the chance that when we act, we will lose something we value. Risk, like life, is always about probabilities...

In her book Keeping Place: Reflections on the Meaning of Home , Jen Pollock Michel reflects on the nature of home in a transient age. In this short excerpt, Michel focuses on etymology of home in v...

During the riots in Palestine in the middle thirties a village near Haifa was condemned to collective punishment by having its sheep and cattle sequestrated by the Government. The inhabitants however ...

As the modern day person struggles with the baffling question of his own existence… science falls short of providing full answers… it can tell how, but not why.” Coleman adds, “Despite their fine auto...

In this context (Matthew 6)…storing up treasures focuses particularly on the compassionate use of material resources to meet others’ physical and spiritual needs, in keeping with the priorities of God...

A first-century Hebrew walks alone on a hot afternoon, staff in hand. His shoulders are stooped, his tunic stained with sweat. But he doesn’t stop to rest. He has pressing business in the city. He vee...

Too often we give real estate to things in our lives that either haven’t earned their land or were never meant to occupy important space in the first place.

In modern Western culture we place a high value on work, which is fine, but one of the philosophical assumptions that can come with such values is that we assume that we own what we earn or buy. From ...

Are the things you are living for worth Christ dying for?

Heavenly Father, we confess that we often place value in things that are important, but which may not be fully reflective of your desires. We admit that we settle for things that seem good, but don’t ...

The French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu put it this way. Each of us has what he called a habitus: a set of dispositions to respond more or less spontaneously to the world in particular ways, without mu...

Heavenly Father, we confess that we desire many things in life, but that we are not always prepared to receive the things that you long to provide—the things that you know we need. Help us, by your Ho...

All: “The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the work of human hands. They have mouths, but do not speak; they have eyes, but do not see; they have ears, but do not hear, nor is there any breat...