"Deserving" means meritorious and worthy. For a person to "deserve" the focus is on rewarding "self" for hard work or excelling performance standards. We all "need" reliable transportation to get around in most U.S. environs to either get to our place of work or to do our job. Likewise, we all need transportation to function. To acquire food and visit family requires personal transportation. We're a little different than third-world countries who get by on foot, bicycle or public transportation. Indeed many in Africa, South America and the Orient believe Americans are "rich" because most of us have a car, and many two or more!
If the world citizen looks at our housing they are flabbergasted! Whereas, the third-world lives in the side of mountains, in huts, ghetto housing or at best multi-family tenements, Americans live mostly in single-family homes with garages for our cars! Many have garages for second homes; their RV's. Truly most folks in the United States are blessed. Those in soup lines in the big cities have color TV's, video recorders and stereos. The world citizen would be impressed with how we live!
We have "everything" so to speak! Why, then, are Americans so unhappy? Affluence, for most, is selfish and greedy! It's not wrong to have things; it's just wrong to place too much importance on materialism. That "importance" is holding something which should be low priority in high esteem:
Luke 16:13 "No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon."
We all know who God is; I hope! Who's "mammon"? Mammon is the god called "worldly gain"! We cannot seek prosperity and love God, for by doing so, our attempt is serving the wrong master, but worse yet, endeavoring to serve two masters! On a global scale Americans are rich, but are never satisfied! We always "want" more and think that we "deserve" it for some obscure reason. The reason we "have" is because we've been blessed; it's not because we've done something meritorious. In fact God has blessed us in spite of our selfishness! He's patient with us, but just how long will he be so?
Mark 8:36 "For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"
As we approach sure death mammon should become less important! In fact my brother Joe, affluent, but not rich, gave his money away as if it was water on his deathbed. Where he was going it had no pecuniary value! Indeed the streets are of gold in heaven and riches are mere pavement if our new home is Paradise!
Proverbs 30:8-9 "Remove far from me vanity and lies: give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me: 9 Lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, Who is the Lord? or lest I be poor, and steal, and take the name of my God in vain."
"Wanting" something is an emotion seeking to make one happy. Happiness cannot be found in possessions. Indeed, having gets in the way of joy. As for myself, I collect fountain pens. I enjoy the "hunt" of making the find, the extra profits which will hopefully be handed down to my family, but as I go into my study and look at my collection, there is no happiness to be found there!
I was at an auction of a vast collection of fountain pens and was bidding profusely and winning many. However, midway through the auction I was told that the wealthy lawyer who had owned the collection had committed suicide! My excitement ebbed. I virtually quit bidding and kept not one of those pens for my own collection. Things do not happiness make and now I get little joy out of my possessions of any kind. They are temporary:
2 Corinthians 4:18 "While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal."
Pens, cars, houses, boy toys and the like do little to make me happy. I'm grateful that God has provided my needs, as well as many wants, but what truly matters to me is love. I know that God loves me and that I make a feeble attempt to love him back. Likewise, I strongly love my wife and family, but struggle to show it. My desire, more than anything, is to have the love of my family! My friends loving me is important, but secondary. Companionship is a necessity, not just a "want". I don't deserve the love of anyone because I'm not worthy, but I desire that others love me in spite of myself!
What if no one loves me? I'm disappointed, feel alone and lack a basic need. However, I still have God who loves me and his love (grace) is sufficient (2 Cor 12:9)! as others swarm around me as if I'm invisible the invisible God loves me without measure. Whereas, my home, car and toys are temporary the invisible realm of God is forever. He has a place ready for me right now:
John 14:2 "In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you."
God had a a "place" early on. His earthly home was in the tent of meeting; the Tabernacle. He was worshiped in the Holy of Holies and dispensed grace on the mercy seat of the Ark of the Covenant. God was content in his tent of cloth and his wooden seat. His needs were met! He was a happy God because he was in communion with and had a relationship with those who served and loved him! Kings came and in a feeble attempt to please God, they insisted on building him a regal house of the best cedars trimmed in gold. God deserved that, but he didn't need it. All that God desired was love! That he failed to get. In the quest for mammon mankind took their eyes off their first love and looked upon the "Self". God's servants chose mammon. Great buildings and societies were built. However, happiness was not found. Great societies destroyed themselves because of their god Mammon; their own Self!
God blessed me with a loving family, a good education, a great job, reliable transportation and a house beyond my wildest dreams. I'm content with what God provided, but in the eternal scheme of things, with mortal death, they mean nothing to me! I do thank God for the use of his things while I'm here and that he provided well. I will give them back soon! However, I never deserved what God blessed me with in spite of my own hard work. God had the grace to place me in America, gave me some degree of intelligence, provided an opportunity for an education and gave me a continuous job for 41 years! On top of that he gave me many wants. However, I seldom placed much desire on wants, but prioritized satisfying the needs of my family!
My prosperity will soon be left to others. As far as what I need: a warm cabin, food, health, and a junker car is about it. Oh yes, I need love. I need that more than anything. Love makes me endure!
1 Corinthians 13:4-7 (ESV) "Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things"
Yes, "love makes the world go around"! Love is a basic need of everyone and since we're created in his image, God needs our love! He's a jealous God. He needs our love without sharing it with others! He needs all our love and our love of mammon is a roadblock to loving God. Just as mammon interferes with the love of God, it too interferes with out love of each other! The short story "The Gift of the Magi" is the story of a couple who loves each other so immensely that they each sold their best possession to buy the other a gift. Their love was sacrificial. They put aside their wants and focused on the one they loved; their mate.
That's just as God. He desires that we sacrifice our wants and love him only. We then depend on him to meet our needs and he does that! Likewise, earthly relationships must be the same. If we love one another, God will provide! He won't necessarily give us a mansion here, but our promise is a room in an eternal mansion. That promise is fulfilled when we destroy mammon and go with God!
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