newportmesa a church for the community

People of Desire

You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

Exodus 20:17

You shall have no other gods before me.                         Exodus 20:3

The Passion to Possess

“Beware! Guard against every kind of greed. Life is not measured by how much you own.”

Luke 12:15

• Is a Burden

The more you have, the more people come to help you spend it. So what good is wealth—except perhaps to watch it slip through your fingers!

Ecclesiastes 5:11

• Is Deceptive

Yet true godliness with contentment is itself great wealth.  After all, we brought nothing with us when we came into the world, and we can’t take anything with us when we leave it.  So if we have enough food and clothing, let us be content.  But people who long to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many foolish and harmful desires that plunge them into ruin and destruction.  For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. And some people, craving money, have wandered from the true faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows.

1 Timothy 6:6-10

Practicing Contentment

The Lord is my shepherd; I have all that I need.                          Psalm 23:1

• Is a Process

I’ve learned by now to be quite content whatever my circumstances. I’m just as happy with little as with much, with much as with little. I’ve found the recipe for being happy whether full or hungry, hands full or hands empty. Whatever I have, wherever I am, I can make it through anything in the One who makes me who I am.

Philippians 4:12-13

• Brings Peace

Yet I still belong to you; you hold my right hand.

You guide me with your counsel, leading me to a glorious destiny.

Whom have I in heaven but you?  I desire you more than anything on earth.

My health may fail, and my spirit may grow weak, but God remains the strength

of my heart; he is mine forever.

Psalm 73:23

Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”                  Hebrews 13:5