Mirage – Week 3 (3-5-23)
Mirage
March 5, 2023
We Comfort & Pleasure
Mirage: a visual illusion without substance or reality.
Knowing it is a mirage does not strip the temptation of its power.
“I can save myself.”
Impact Bias – takes a simple desire and magnifies it out of proportion
Focalism – Focus our mind on one thing and blurs out everything else. This is going to be way better than it actually is.
Luke 12:18-21 —> Bigger Barns
13 Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” 14 Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?” 15 Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.” 16 And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. 17 He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’18 “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. 19 And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’
20 “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’ 21 “This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.”
Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.
___________ + ___________ + ___________ = Be merry
If you distort my goodness and blessing it will create a world you will not want to be a part of!
2 Timothy 3:1-5
But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. 2 People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, 4 treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— 5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.
We see those people! They are the problem.
I am those people! I am the problem.
Matthew 6:33-34
But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.