The Most Precious Commodity (A Three Part Series)

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Matthew 6:21 NIV)

What is the one thing that humankind cannot do without?

I realize that the answer will vary greatly depending on who you ask.

Personally, I would think that the top three answers would be money, fame, and freedom, though not necessarily in that order. I say this because these three once ranked the top in my own list of priorities in life. That, and also because I observed that everyone else I knew seemed to be striving (and competing) for these very same things.

I believe that it is important for us to be able to take the time to sit down and look at the things that we truly value in life: the things we hope for and strive for, and consider the implications that they have on the way we actually live our lives and relate to each other as human beings.

It is my desire therefore, to use this space and time to assess the three things that I believe are foremost on many people’s minds when they think about what they truly value in this life.

Let’s start with what I think is the most obvious.

It’s all about the money, money, money… goes Rihanna in her popular song.

About four decades ago, Liza Minnelli sang a similar riff in the Broadway Film Cabaret, where she sang the famous words: Money makes the world go round!

If there is one thing that the modern world never seems to get enough of, its money.

If any of you ever wondered to yourselves, exactly how much money is there in the world right now, you would be hard pressed to find a definitive answer. Because not only are the numbers constantly changing, but the numbers themselves are already beyond normal human comprehension.

As an illustration, US Federal Reserve statistics in 2009 estimated that a little over eight trillion US dollars in actual currency were in circulation in the world during that time. That’s twelve zeroes after the eight. Your average pocket calculator would start displaying the “E” for error sign at this point.

If you tried to count all that money manually at a rate of one dollar per second every day, it would take you over two hundred forty thousand (240,000) years to finish counting.

And that is just all the US dollars in the world in 2009.

Why so much money?

I believe a simple answer to that question is this: humans have reached a state where their want of resources far exceeds their capacity to consume them.

In an even simpler answer, I believe the reason is greed.

That’s ridiculous! I can already hear some of you reacting. It can’t be as simple as that! You’re not even an expert! Surely, our economists have a better explanation! The situation is far more complicated than it seems!

Well, that’s what I had thought too.

Until I looked at my own life and saw the mechanics of greed at work in it.

Like many humans in this day and age, I work for money. I strive to excel in my work because I want to earn a bigger paycheck. I tell myself that the more that I earn, the more secure I will be in life.

I realize now that this is an illusion. The more I earn, the more insecure I actually become. That is because I only need so much to maintain my life. The surplus of my income inevitably gets spent on superfluous things: things that make me feel good…for a time.

Before I know it, I become addicted to that feeling. I need to buy even more of those things just so that I can get that feeling back again and again. And there’s always something bigger. There’s always something shinier. There’s always something better. Soon, I realize that I’m not making enough money to purchase those bigger, shinier, and better things.

So work for more money. I compete for more money. I strive for more money. Until money is all I care about. Money is all that matters.

It’s all about the money. Show me the money, and that’s where I will be.

You see, all those complicated economic theories that try to analyze financial crises fail to realize one thing: that greed is not a matter of economics, but a matter of the human condition.

It is the same reason why economics has to this day failed to solve world hunger and eradicate wars for resources. It only been looking at the symptoms and not the root of the problem.

Sound economic policy might mitigate the symptoms for a time. But then reality sets in and the bubble inevitably bursts. History has proven this time and again. Not even the world’s greatest civilizations can avoid financial collapse due to unbridled human greed.

At this point, many of you will probably argue: But that’s just the way we are! Humans are just plain greedy! There’s nothing we can do about it, and that’s that.

That’s partly correct. We cannot do anything about it. Not by ourselves.

This disease is far beyond the capacity of humanity to heal by itself. It needs strong medicine to be administered into it from the outside.

But for any of us to accept that medicine, we must first be convinced that we are sick.

For the cure is only as effective as a proper diagnosis.

Here then is the Good News:

Someone outside of humanity DID come into the world. And He brought with Him a diagnosis of the human condition.

It is the human heart that is the cause of all our suffering.

“For from within, out of the human heart, come evil ideas, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, evil, deceit, debauchery, envy, slander, pride, and folly. All these evils come from within and defile a person." - (Mark 7:21-23 NET)

He tells us that money is NOT the most precious commodity in the world, and that we would do well to put it in its proper place in terms of the things that we value in life.

For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. And some people, craving money, have wandered from the true faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows. - (1 Timothy 6:10 NLT)

Not only did He bring with Him the diagnosis, He also brought with Him the medicine, namely Himself.

“I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world." - (John 6:51 NIV)

And to take that medicine, we need only do one thing:

 "This is the only work God wants from you: Believe in the One He has sent."  - (John 6:29 NLT)

I had long resisted taking that medicine, and in so doing, have lived in growing misery with humanity’s disease, causing its spread, both within myself and to others.

But the good thing about this medicine is that it NEVER loses any of its potency. It is the same strong medicine that has been saving lives from generations past. And I am fully convinced that it will remain the one and only true medicine for humankind.

A most precious commodity indeed.

Soli Deo Gloria.