Reexamine Your Spending Habits

Philippians 4:11-12 I have learned to be satisfied with what I have and with whatever happens. I know how to live when I am poor and when I have plenty. I have learned the secret of how to live through any kind of situation—when I have enough to eat or when I am hungry, when I have everything I need or when I have nothing.

Okay, time to get in your face today (you’re welcome!). How do you spend your money? More importantly, what criteria do you apply to choosing either the cheaper or more expensive version of something, or to that impulse item that’s just screaming out at you … “buy me!”

If your finances are somewhere between tight and critical, the answer’s pretty simple; you only buy what you have to – although even then the temptation’s still strong to splurge and not leave enough for the essentials.

But judging from the trinkets and junk available in any digital or physical shopping mall that you’d care to visit, the answer for many of those who’re a bit better off is … well, they don’t have any criteria. They just … buy, accumulate and then hire storage facilities for their excess junk.

Maybe it’s time to rethink that. The Apostle Paul, sitting in a Roman dungeon on death row, wrote this:

Philippians 4:11,12 I have learned to be satisfied with what I have and with whatever happens. I know how to live when I am poor and when I have plenty. I have learned the secret of how to live through any kind of situation—when I have enough to eat or when I am hungry, when I have everything I need or when I have nothing.

It seems that, for Paul, satisfaction didn’t come from stuff but from God Himself.

What are you spending your money on? Why are you spending it? Do you really need that ‘thing’ … really!? Know this – whatever it is, however much it costs, it’ll never bring you’re the contentment, the fulfillment, you’re looking for.

That’s God’s Word. Fresh … for you … today.