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Truths to Live By - One Day at a Time
Devotional: December 26th

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“And the King of Sodom said unto Abram, give me the persons, and take the goods to thyself.”

Invading armies had come to Sodom and had captured Lot, his family and great quantities of spoil. As soon as Abram heard about it, he armed his servants and pursued the invaders, finally catching up with them near Damascus and rescuing the captives and their belongings. The King of Sodom went out to meet Abram as he returned and said, “Give me the persons, and take the goods to thyself.” Abram answered that he wouldn’t take even a shoe lace from the king lest the latter would say he had made Abram rich.

There is a sense in which the King of Sodom represents Satan, trying to get believers to be occupied with material things and to neglect the people around them. Abram resisted the temptation, but many since that time have not been so successful. They have given priority to the accumulation of possessions and have paid little attention to neighbors and friends who are facing eternity without God, without Christ and without hope.

People are important; things are not. A young Christian walked into the living room where his mother was sewing and said, “Mother, I’m glad that God has given me a greater love for people than for things.” That particular mother was glad too.

It seems incongruous to weep when someone breaks your English bone china teacup, yet never to shed a tear over perishing millions. It says something when we have a phenomenal memory for baseball scores, yet whine that we have an awful time remembering people’s names. I betray my distorted sense of values when I am more upset over the damage done to my car than the injured person in the other car. It is easy to resent interruptions when we are working on some pet project, and yet the interruption may be far more important than the project.

We are often more interested in gold and silver than in men and women. A. T. Pierson said, “There is buried in gold and silver and useless ornaments in Christian homes enough to build a fleet of 50,000 vessels, ballast them with Bibles and crowd them with missionaries: build a church in every destitute hamlet and supply every living soul with the Gospel within a score of years.” Another prophet of God, J. A. Stewart, wrote, “We have used our wealth to indulge in luxuries that we do not need. We have ‘caviar tastes,’ while millions in other parts of our world are dying in the starvation of sin. We have sold our spiritual birthright-heritage for a mess of pottage.”

My heart often wonders when we Christians will abandon the mad scramble for material possessions and concentrate on the spiritual welfare of people. One human soul is worth more than all the wealth in the world. Things don’t matter. People do.

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