Like No One Else

"Live like no one else now so you can live like no one else later."

Recently I learned the joys of golf, it is called captains choice!  Seriously, I'm not sure if I will ever want to play on my own merit again.  We kept track of whose ball we used to stay competitive, because everything is competitive, but there was no disappointment, no stress, and no foul language which usually accompanies this game.

I played with friends that made it even better, guys I have known for 10 plus years, who have seen the worst and the few things that are the best about me.  Guys who I am now separated by distance from and communicate only through electronics so it was very special to me.

Of course, conversation ensued about everything.  At one point we spoke of money, views, ideas, problems.  In the midst of this came Dave Ramsey and his course.  My wife and I have taken this course and it has done great things for us budget wise, allowing her to stay home with our son.  I am a fan, but my friend brought up a great point.

Ramsey's budget system is brilliant, and lots of other things as well, I love it and continue to send people to it, but ultimately his overwhelming theme is wrong, his goal is skewed.  The tag line is, "Live like no one else now so you can live like no one else later."  Is this a masked form of the prosperity gospel?

We talk of being like those in the book of Acts but also teach tithe what you can, or feel lead to so as not to hurt any ones feelings or pocket book.  Looks to me that in that early church people were selling their good stuff in order to help, not giving 10% to feel ok and then relying on whatever is trendy to hold our stature and feelings in that place.

Enjoy things, they are given by God, but enjoy them with the understanding that they are given by God, so that we can be satisfied in Him, not His things.  God made the color red so I could enjoy it, He knew there would be football so I could relax in it.  Seeing everything within the life He set out as things for me to joy in and find my ultimate satisfaction in Christ changes my view of everything.

The NT church that we pretend we want to be was not our American version.  Enjoy the things, but be satisfied in Christ, which leads to giving up many of those things in order that some might not suffer.  Be careful that retirement is not on a higher pedestal than the widow and orphan, more aptly for us today, the single mother and fatherless child.

Live like no one else now.  I think we can just leave it at that.

Fight to make the extraordinary seem normal

-Ordinary Warrior