READING:
One-year plan: Ezekiel 6-11
Two-year plan: Jeremiah 7:12-9:3, 1 Timothy 4:1-10
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All the stuff the world offers cannot bring lasting joy, yet we strive for more stuff anyway. Possessions become the means by which we evaluate our success and our value—even though possessions ultimately wind up in the garbage dump. We know we can’t take any of it with us when we die, but we live as if we can.
On the other hand, it is good for us to remember what Ezekiel recorded when God brought judgment on His people for their materialistic sin: “They will throw their silver into the streets, and their gold will seem like something filthy. Their silver and gold will be unable to save them in the day of the Lord’s wrath” (Ezek 7:19). In the day of judgment, all their material wealth would provide them no cover. Indeed, they would learn that the idols they had fashioned from their silver and gold could never protect them from God’s anger. The wealth they had deemed so important at one point would be nothing less than filthy in the end. It would provide neither protection nor satisfaction.
I am reminded today that living for the temporary is foolish indeed.
PERSONAL REFLECTION: Are you living for temporary stuff today?
PRAYER: “God, let me live only for You today.”
TOMORROW’S READING:
One-year plan: Ezekiel 12-15
Two-year plan: Jeremiah 9:4-10:25, 1 Timothy 4:11-5:16
MEMORIZATION VERSE (September 1-15)
“For what does it benefit someone to gain the whole world and yet lose his life?” (Mark 8:36)
