generosity

i find it interesting. The third of the seven deadly sins is greed, or avarice. This is so relevant to us, and the US, today.
What is it that you dream about? a boat? a nice house with the perfect car? or maybe it is something that isn't of monetary value...fame? peer acceptance? or maybe your name on the front of a book that you wrote?
Pastor Aaron Baart of Bridge of Hope Ministries in Sioux Center, IA defines greed as, "prioritizing the created before the creator." He also aligns greed with idolatry defining idolatry, "worshiping the created before the creator." This alignment between greed and idolatry is a significant one because they go hand in hand. How often has it been done that someone has cheapened what they give to God because they buy a material thing, let's say, a boat. The greed used to deny God the money they should give HIM comes from the idolizing of the boat. In turn the idolization roots to money, and I think that this is particularly relevant problem to North America.
In the same way fame, or peer acceptance can be an idolatry/greed problem. This problem is easily seen in middle and high school. People become greedy of a social position, and idolize those who are in those positions.
The fact is you can't serve both God and Money (or fame). Jesus addresses the danger with greed in his Sermon on the Mount. In Matthew 6:19 Christ says, "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven...for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." and later in verse 24, "no one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.
Because of this we are called to a life of generosity. Generosity is what we were made for, not to hoard the things of this earth. If we become generous people when other things come up against us we will be very well protected.
I think that the root of the difficulties of greed come from measuring success against economic wealth. We can use the measures of the world to give ourselves self worth. The world is measuring success on economic status, this cannot be our roots of success. We need to be far from it. And we cannot use alternative sources to reach the same goal. Our goals and dreams need to be far different. We cannot say, "I want to be a Christian and own a 5000 square foot home." If you do say this ask yourself, what is it that you actually want? What is it that you could give up?
Giving up greed does not mean giving up money. Generosity does not mean writing out a check for $80,000 and giving it to Africa. Throwing money at them doesn't help. Generosity means giving the kingdom away. I find it interesting that we think the way to help is giving money away. It is an easy solution and it gives a good feeling to give 10% away and be done with it. But what is actually accomplished by throwing our money at people. The kingdom is now, and it needs to be given away. Give up the world, give up greed, live in the Kingdom and give it away.