God - a Luxury or a Need?
There have been various newspaper reports indicating that many people are changing their lifestyles to accomodate and adapt to the ever rising petrol prices. Instead of going out and eating at a nice restaurant and building up an impressive DVD collection, people are now beginning to order the pizza takeaway, and hiring the DVD from the video store in order to get around to places in the car rather than using public transport.
This is a simple economic principle. When times are good and people have the extra money, they would spend it on luxury items to have a better living; but when times are rough, people will tend to cut back spending on these non-important items and focus on just the necessity items. The reliance on the use of cars has made petrol now a need in our every day living. Like bread or milk, many of us would sacrifice other parts of our lives in order to spend on petrol.
Many people treat God as a "luxury" in many circumstances. They have many "needs" that need to be satisfied before they have the time and resource to invest in the "luxury", God:
Or is God really that unimportant that He just does not even deserve to even be in that 2% of our lives?
Genesis 2:7 tells us that "the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being." (NIV) God is the source of our lives. Without God, the things around us would not exist. Without God, there would not be those project deadlines, there would not be that career ladder for us to climb, there would not be those luxury living standards to strive for, because without God, we would not be a living being at all! Without God, is anything that we do meaningful at all?
So is God the "luxury" who we should neglect because we have not satisfied all the needs in our lives, or is He perhaps, that luxurious "need" that we would never have enough of that should be first on our list rather than last?
This is a simple economic principle. When times are good and people have the extra money, they would spend it on luxury items to have a better living; but when times are rough, people will tend to cut back spending on these non-important items and focus on just the necessity items. The reliance on the use of cars has made petrol now a need in our every day living. Like bread or milk, many of us would sacrifice other parts of our lives in order to spend on petrol.
Many people treat God as a "luxury" in many circumstances. They have many "needs" that need to be satisfied before they have the time and resource to invest in the "luxury", God:
- The "need" of meeting the immediate demands like project deadlines;
- The "need" of climbing the career ladder;
- The "need" of improving on the living standards;
- And so on ...
Or is God really that unimportant that He just does not even deserve to even be in that 2% of our lives?
Genesis 2:7 tells us that "the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being." (NIV) God is the source of our lives. Without God, the things around us would not exist. Without God, there would not be those project deadlines, there would not be that career ladder for us to climb, there would not be those luxury living standards to strive for, because without God, we would not be a living being at all! Without God, is anything that we do meaningful at all?
So is God the "luxury" who we should neglect because we have not satisfied all the needs in our lives, or is He perhaps, that luxurious "need" that we would never have enough of that should be first on our list rather than last?
For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. (Romans 1:21 NIV)
