Blessed are those without clutter

Then He said to them, “Beware, and be on your guard against every form of greed; for not even when one has an abundance does his life consist of his possessions.”– Luke 12:15, NASB

Why didn’t he toss it out a long time ago? Too good to throw away, you put it in the closet. Eventually, you have to reckon with it. What will you do with the clutter? It’s not only our closets that suffer from clutter. Clutter is a disease of the heart as well.

Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3), but no one wants to be poor, in spirit or in material possessions. Everybody delights in being able to say, “My this” or “That’s mine.” A.W. Tozer faced the issue squarely: “The pronouns my and mine look innocent enough in print, but their constant and universal use is significant. They express the real nature of the old Adamic man better than a thousand volumes of theology could do. They are verbal symptoms of our deep disease. The roots of our hearts have grown down into things, and we dare not pull up one rootlet lest we die.”

Clutter becomes a disease that is consuming. The more you have, the more you want; and the more you get, the more you must have. Today the issue is not what you have, but rather what has you – those things that consume your time, interest, your very existence.

Jesus often made people uncomfortable because He cut to the very heart of issues, stripping away hypocrisy and superficiality. He said bluntly, “Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth” (Luke 12:15, KJV).

Russian novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn once told of his arrest. Item by item, his captors took away what had been meaningful to him – his home, books, papers, family. Finally, all he had left was what he had within, and Solzhenitsyn said that he was never richer than when he knew they could not take away the treasures inside his heart.

Is there clutter in your life you need to remove?

Used with permission from Guidelines International Ministries. To learn more about Guidelines and the ministry, send an e-mail to [email protected]. You may also visit www.guidelines.org.