Worldliness (Foreword by John Piper) by C. J. Mahaney

Author:C. J. Mahaney
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Crossway
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chain 2: My Stuff Makes Me Important

For that man wanting part of his brother’s inheritance, his approach to Jesus was not only crude but arrogantly selfimportant. If he took his mind off himself for a moment to listen to the parable Jesus tells, he would see himself in it. Perhaps he would consider the heady hubris of the rich man in that parable, each statement dripping with self-exaltation: “I will do this . . . I will do that . . . I will comfort my soul with my own wise words.”

I . . . I . . . I . . . my . . . my . . . my . . . The rich fool lives in the world of All-About-Me.

Scripture has a specific name for this chain: pride in possessions. “For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions—is not from the Father but is from the world” (1 John 2:16). The New Bible Dictionary comments on this passage:

The two dominant characteristics of “this world” are pride, born of man’s failure to accept his creaturely estate and his dependence on the Creator . . . and covetousness, which causes him to desire and possess all that is attractive to his physical senses.6

The intertwining of pride and covetousness is as inevitable as it is destructive. If I’m truly at the center of things (pride), then stuff exists to serve my desires (coveting). And if I find my identity in stuff (coveting), then the amount of stuff I acquire makes me important (pride). These dual chains are always strung together around anyone who finds selfimportance in stuff.

How many advertisers seek to peddle their products by appealing to our inner arrogance, the unvarnished assumption being that we deserve the best? But pride is a ravenous rebel—it never ends there. Having obtained our desire, we then feel superior through that possession, wrongly assuming it says something wonderful about us. It’s almost as if our purchase becomes a sacrifice we offer to ourselves: “Be exalted, you wonderful guy, through this offering of love!” Or, to say it more simply, my stuff makes me important.

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