In the Church today, it is well accepted that to deny oneself something is better than to indulge in something. It is thought that being poor is better than being rich. I would like to question if this is really biblical. The evidence in the Bible is that self-denial of this kind is not what Jesus was talking about when he told the disciples to deny themselves (Matt. 16:24). Jesus continued to spell out that whoever would be his disciple must “take up his cross, and follow Me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for My sake shall find it” (Matt. 16:24–25). Jesus is speaking of losing our lives from our will to God’s will (and even losing them in death, if necessary).
Jesus was called “gluttonous and a winebibber” (Matt. 11:19). He was definitely not fulfilling man’s expectations of self-denial. In the Old Testament, God gave the Israelites three to four feasts a year, and only one time of fasting. (The many fasts observed in the days of Jesus were added later, not by God.) These feasts are fulfilled in Christ, and we have the New Testament feast of the Lord’s Supper, which takes their place.
The Bible does not give us the pattern of self-denial that is accepted in the church today. It tells us that God created a good, abundant world for us to enjoy! Certainly, we are not to take that enjoyment to the point of gluttony or drunkenness, but we are called to enjoy what God has given us. The Psalmist calls us to “taste and see that the Lord is good” (Ps. 34:8)! If we are only allowed to have very little and we are to deny ourselves the enjoyment of life, how can we “taste and see”?
We are here to use this world in God’s service. In fact, we dedicate this world to God’s glory. That is our place in this world. Do we dedicate the good things of this world to God’s glory by abstaining from them? No! We dedicate the things of this world by using them to God’s glory. In the first chapter of the Bible, we are commanded to subdue the world (Gen. 1:28)—to bend it to our uses in the service of God’s glory. Paul tells us that the things of this world are sanctified by “the word of God and prayer” (1 Tim. 4:4–5). Because the animals are not moral creatures, they cannot consciously dedicate their usage of things to God’s glory. However, we, in our worship and in our prayers, dedicate our usage of those things God has given us to His glory.
At the same time, we must ask about stuff in general: does it help or hinder our service to God?
We live in a culture with an excess of stuff. This is demonstrated by the number of storage units all over the place, by the state of our closets, and (at least in my case) by the state of our garage. Much of what we have cluttering our closets, storage units, and garages is stuff that we have replaced or are not using right now. And yet the feeling is: “But I need it!” And, of course, we always seem to want the next big thing too.
I have to ask myself, what do I need all this stuff for? We want the newest, the latest, the greatest, but so often what we have does the job just fine. This may seem in conflict with what was said just above, rejecting asceticism as an expression of our religion. I want to make a clear distinction: asceticism says that wealth and things are categorically bad. Here I am asking if the things we want, need, or already have, are helping or hindering our service of God. It may seem like a fine line, but it is an important one. So often the thing itself becomes where we focus, instead of considering its use in our service to God.
It is not wrong to have things, or even to be rich in the things of this world, as long as those things are in service to God. However, when the things get in the way of service to God, when they become more important, then we have a problem.
The things of this world, no matter how desirable, are tools. Money is a tool. We do not sit there and look at the new tool for very long. We use the tool to accomplish something. As Christians, our goal with all our tools is to use them for the glory of God.
How important is that new thing? Will it cause a perfectly good possession to sit on a shelf? Will it interfere with my service to Christ? We ought to think twice about these choices. We get ourselves on a treadmill of following the next thing without thoughtful consideration of how this relates to our Christianity.
Rev. James Grossmann
Salem-Ebenezer Reformed Church
Manitowoc, WI