In affluent countries few people think about basic needs—clean drinking water, food, shelter, and health care come easily for them. Because they have ample resources to satisfy their every whim, their every sense can be stimulated. Unfortunately, what matters most—faith in God, honesty, a strong work ethic, biblical morals, and godly love for others—can be lacking, neglected, or missing altogether. Some privileged people direct their time, talents, energy, and faith at everyone and everything but the God who created them.
With a multiplicity of possessions, Westerners value brand names and elite entrepreneurs because they have the wealth to choose what is popular. Some things are necessary—clothing, household appliances, cooking utensils, phones, computers, transportation (bicycles, cars)—but other things, add-ons, are frivolous. Artwork, jewelry, gourmet foods, chocolate, and even a plethora of print materials, are unnecessary. Today information travels so fast that even the most expensive products are quickly replicated elsewhere at more reasonable prices. Artisans and producers who stand by their names and reputations spend exorbitant sums to market their wares while people starve somewhere in the world. Marketing creates a “need,” not just a desire, for products. With more products there must be more storage space and easy retrieval. Many people think of personal favorites when gadgets, stars, or sports’ teams are mentioned or flick across a screen.
Greed and covetousness are their own addictions. Compulsion for material possessions becomes love and idolatry of them. Designs and their creators are worshipped, as curious people obsess about the brand or label a person is wearing. Perfumers, gourmet chefs, sommeliers, artists, and designers tempt every sense with their products—anything the heart may yearn for and the mind imagine in entertainment, sports, places of higher learning, even in some Christian churches.
Materialism has always existed. As soon as people started making tools, others wanted them. As the tools improved, others worked harder to produce more sophisticated and more eye appealing things causing the soul to covet even more. One only need consider the fashion industry and how it has redefined beauty. It uses man’s visual acuity and fleshly appetite to lure, especially the undiscerning. In early Christianity, people strived to be humble and less provocative in dress, but over the centuries paganism infiltrated cultures and pride grew, setting a new norm.
We are exposed to countless things that occupy a huge marketplace niche. Extremely lucrative businesses bring in exorbitant wealth and employ millions. Consider technology, including the Internet, much of which benefits society, and look at how it has driven the pornography industry. The devil has set traps everywhere to ensnare even those who consider themselves Christians.
There are creators all around us and consumers cannot help but reflect whom they support. God made humanity in His image and gifted them with abilities to make, create, evaluate, and remake. We reflect what or who we worship. God did not make any part of creation to be worshipped. Only God is to be worshipped. We are told this in the first and second commandments.
People reflect the creators that they worship. Bible-believing Christians worship only God, who created them to worship and reflect Him. We can only know Him through knowing who He is, trusting Him to be who He says He is, loving Him, and worshipping Him. Everything else will fall away, and die. Those who do not know God but worship everything outside of God will fall away with it and die. But those who know God and trust Him first will live eternally.
