Giving up your Life[style] June 7, 2008
Posted by BDO in Descriptions, Money Spent, Spiritual.Tags: bible, Debt, give, hands, help, helping, life, lifestyle, style
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Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.
When have you seen on the nightly news in America that a person gives up his life for a friend or cause? Not too often. Americans have a certain sense of “safety” and “control” over their lives, which causes them, in general, not to have to face such a situation. In our day to day living, we are not given the choice of life or death. Though we go to movies and watch actors struggle against good and evil against all odds and most times take their lives in their own hands to save another for some great cause, we don’t experience this kind of “adventure” in our personal lives. John 15:13 does not relate much in our cultural today when you take the words literally.
However, if we insert a few letters that cause the meaning of the sentence to change, will it hit home? How about we add the word “style” to the word “life”?
Now the verse would read…
Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life[style] for his friends.
For some, this small change makes the verse very personal. In America, we have a very fancy personal lifestyle and standard of living. You can tell how much we love our lifestyle by what receives most of our spending money as a nation: lattés, movies, clothes, and cars. We are given the choice everyday to lay down our lifestyles by the choices that are presented to us to spend our money. Would you be willing to give up your life[style] to help fund a great cause or to assist a friend/stranger in need?
In our “safe” America, Americans should read this verse as a call to be willing to give up their life[style] to help their fellow brother/sister. Every time we choose to purchase something, we should ask ourselves whether the purchase is necessary and whether it is reasonably priced. If we honestly answer no to those questions, then we should give up that purchase in an act of love to our brother/sister.
Here are some ways you can give up your life[style]:
- 1) Get a smaller car.
- 2) Get a smaller house.
- 3) Reduce the amount of times you go out to eat.
- 4) Reduce phone bill costs.
- 5) Plan or budget your shopping and entertainment trips before making them instead of splurging on them at the last minute.
Some of these ideas are very small, and some are very large. But each of these things will reduce the kind of life[style] you are living currently. With the savings you receive from giving up your life[style], please use that money wisely by giving it to your local church or to a national tax-exempt organization or use it to help you beat debt.
What are some other ways you can give up you life[style]?
How can you show love towards your fellow brother/sister?
“Withhold not good from them to whom it is due, when it is in the power of thine hand to do it” – Proverbs 3:27 KJV
Photo by: Addicted Eyes
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A Kid's Guide to Managing Money (Ready-Set-Grow Series)
Honestly, I don’t watch the news on TV but it seems as though I am always hearing great stories about people who are giving up their lives or some portion of their lives to help others. Maybe it depends on where we get our news or what we are looking for!
Budgeting is such an important idea. I budget $50 a week for fun. (Which, unfortunately, is more of a “miscellaneous” category for me in a way – it’s eating out, or going to a movie, or buying a book, and also things like getting dish soap or razors which really need a budget of their own.)
And I’d say that it’s crucial to have a spending plan in general, for every category we spend money on, as the very first step in combating debt and having a healthy relationship with money. (Or maybe the first step is to track what we spend, so as to know what categories to put in that spending plan in the first place. At least that is what Debtors Anonymous recommends, and they’re the best place I have found for dealing with money issues.)
I work part-time in a retail store and boy do I see the vanity that America has. First it’s a desire to buy a new dress and then shoes to match. Then it’s jewelry to match the dress and shoes. And out comes the credit card. It’s hard to give up a lifestyle you are trying to create or maintain. We all want it better than our parents had. And plastic money helps do that and the media feeds our hunger for more and better. Our lifestyle? It’s a hard decision to cut back because it doesn’t feel good to scrimp, save, or do without when it is so easy to have it all. I live frugally already, but more lifestyle changes would be beneficial so more of my debt could be paid down and more dollars could be freed up for charitable causes. It would do us all good to read a book on how the Menonites live, More with Less.