Being rich makes it more difficult to follow Jesus. He said something along these lines in Luke 19.24, "how hard it is for a rich man..." It has been suggested that riches create a false sense of self-security. Whatever occurs in life, you can cope. You can buy your way out of trouble. Riches make us selfish - things that we want, we begin to think of as things we need. And our minds are focused on the here and now, rather than the unseen things that are eternal. And we are all rich, aren't we? Possibly everyone living in twenty-first century Britain should be thought of as rich, by world standards.

Like it or not, we are enmeshed in a materialistic society. If something is new, we would like it. If a gadget is clever, we want it. The prosperity of our society is based on people creating new needs and then supplying them. When a girl makes a cold call on your telephone offering to sell what you don't want, she is only doing her job, and creating employment for others, too. Your courteous answer enables her to meet her own need, and earn a living. But for the Christian, the question has to be met - what are my reasonable legitimate needs? The answer may vary according to where we live - the needs in Rwanda, for example, are different from ours. Or is it just our wants that are different and our real needs are much the same?

Human beings everywhere pursue the same economic activities, and they always have. Consuming food, marrying, buying and selling, planting and building are the ordinary concerns of everybody's life. As Jesus remarked in Luke 17.26-30, this is just what was happening before the disaster of the Flood, or the sudden destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Not that these ordinary activities are sinful. The sin lies in being wicked as well as ordinary, in being so engrossed in these things that one forgets God, and His laws, and His judgement. This is the eternal dimension. Jesus wants us to live so lightly that we are ready for his unexpected coming, whenever it is. After all, it was the man completely preoccupied with amassing wealth who is called the rich fool.

The desire for material things tends to take over one's life. Jesus noticed this, and tells the story of the man who finds treasure in a field, and then sells everything he has in order to buy the field and claim the treasure. Also, he cites the case of the woman who loses a coin and cannot be contented until she finds it (Matt.13.44, Luke 15.8-10). He does not criticise these people, he might even be wryly amused as they go over the top'. But he tells the stories to point out that an equal dedication is needed in spiritual things. Do we in fact give up everything... everything? ... for the sake of the Kingdom? How much joy do we have when a sinner who is known to us repents?

We may feel that we have this required dedication. Indeed, it is comfortable to sit down with the brethren and feel that we are all on the Lord's side. That was how a fellow guest of Jesus felt at a feast they attended. His complacent remark drew forth from Jesus the story about the invited guests who failed to come to the king's banquet (Luke 14.15-24). This parable, though it doubtless refers to the chosen people of Israel rejecting Jesus, at another level has a lesson for us about materialism. Consider the excuses the invited guests made. As the song has it... "I cannot come to the banquet, don't trouble me now.... I have married a wife... I have bought me a cow.... I have fields and investments which cost a pretty sum.... Pray hold me excused, I cannot come!" Their concerns were reasonable enough, but they let them get in the way of a higher call. Like them, the rich young ruler too had found that he 'could not come' with Jesus. In those days, to refuse an invitation to a meal was no more nor less than an insult. Don't let us be complacent, and disappoint our Lord.

The insidious effects of materialism may make things different from what they seem. The disciples of Jesus, for example, must have been looked up to as the ones he had chosen. But it was one of them who betrayed Him, and we gather that Judas did it for the sake of money... and it was money that he gave back when he realised what it was he had done. (John 12.6, Matt.27.3-5). Or that magnificent temple in Jerusalem, a house of prayer. The taint of injustice and greed had made it become, perhaps by imperceptible stages, a den of thieves (Luke 19.46). There is always the risk of distorting the gospel when we confuse what we want for ourselves, whatever it is, with what we are giving in worship to God.

So, if we acknowledge that God has a claim on all our possessions, we will take some thought what this means in practice. The people of Israel gave their tithes (Mal.3. 10). Not many of us do that. It bears thinking of that even one tenth of an old age pension amounts to a worthwhile sum. We may go on to puzzle our heads how money 'given to God' should be used. Used for our own fellowship? Used for our fellow men in need? Used for Christian causes in particular? Used for what God's inspiration especially directs us to? If we have it in mind to plan our giving, such questions will need an answer. And do such considerations apply only to one tenth, or to all that we have and all that we are? The use of our money and our property is just one part of our whole life that is given in fellowship, in study, in service.

The use of possessions as part of a dedicated life may have unexpected results. The story is told of a Christian youth group involved in marking a Bible-study course for people in the Third World. About twenty new people would write in each month with the first part of the course, to be marked and sent back. Often someone would ask for a Bible, and then the young people would club together, sacrificing pocket money to make sure that anyone who asked for a Bible would get one. One day a course was received from a high security prison in Africa, a Bible being requested which was duly sent. A reply came... "I cannot thank you enough for sending the Bible. I have been reading it for hour after hour... and since it came, six brothers have come to know Christ as their Lord and Saviour. I am not sending the next part of the course back, we are all being executed tomorrow."

Life is not a matter of possessions, rather that God possesses us. We don't trust our possessions, we trust God. Our Father in heaven knows what we need. Our concern must be about His Kingdom and what He requires of us (Matt.6.3l-34). Like the disciples that Christ sent out two by two, we don't carry lumber with us (Matt.10.7-10). We might even take an example from the parabolani (reckless ones) of the olden days. Their task was to visit the sick, even in times of epidemic and plague - whatever the risk to themselves. Once committed to this task, they could not withdraw. Do our hearts quail at the thought that, even today, to follow our Saviour means unconditional risk taking?

Such risks do not seem to be risks if we take the eternal perspective. For the future is in God's hands. When Jesus spoke about 'treasure in heaven', he knew that God's love responds to our faithfulness, now and for ever. This is not a selfish attitude, for our personal hope is balanced by a hope for all the world, of when "there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying... for the former things are passed away" (Rev.21 .4).

There is a nurse in India, who comes from the prosperous city of Bangalore. She wrote, "... I was asked to work at a hospital in a small town in North Karnataka. The people there were mostly poor, uneducated, exploited villagers who had no access to even the basics needed for healthy living. It was heartbreaking to see the conditions in which they lived. I worried that whatever I did, 1 would be able to improve the conditions of these people only temporarily. Only in the ultimate reign of our Lord Jesus Christ can we expect all suffering to be relieved and for all to have access to the fulness of life that the Bible promises.

"What, then, is our duty toward others? Christ calls us to be compassionate and caring to those who have not been blessed as abundantly as we have. Our small acts of mercy can make a difference in the lives of others and draw them to God, in fact, in these acts the Spirit works through us to make the promise of God's reign visible. We become a sign of the reign of God that will eventually 'make all things new'."

We too, when God possesses and controls us, can make some difference in the lives of others, and be a pointer to what His Kingdom will mean in the fulness of time.