Christmas Shoppers Beware!

This year, each member of your household will probably spend $2,208.07 on holiday shopping – if you are an average American. To handle that influx, companies plan to hire an additional 700,000 seasonal workers. But beware! Holiday shopping is more dangerous than you might realize.

It might seem harmless enough – isn’t it selfless to give gifts to others? But in our commercialized country, the influx of money spent on gifts raises an important question: are we content?

The love of money, warns the apostle, is a root of all kinds of evil. ‘Money’ doesn’t just refer to dollar bills – it refers to profit, wealth, possessions, and the things that we imagine will profit us. So the love of profit and gain is ‘a root of all kinds of evil.’

This is why you must beware! “It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.” Every holiday season is ‘Exhibit A’ of people craving for more.

This craving leads some people to err from the faith. They have ‘pierced themselves with many pangs.’ This is dramatically descriptive. These people are willingly piercing themselves, as if with pointed objects. Who would do that?! We know that possessions and wealth won’t satisfy us – often they just make life more stressful and busy – but far too easily, we fall for the allure of riches. If you do that, you are piercing yourself with many pangs.

Since we can’t take anything out of the world (no hearses with U-Hauls, its been said!) – we should be content with food and clothing. That is the apostle’s remedy. Godliness with contentment is great gain.

And what happens to those who desire to be rich? They fall into problems. Lots of problems. Big problems.

1. Such people fall into a temptation. They are tempted to turn away from God, because ‘the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches’ lure them away from the truth.
2. Such people fall into a snare – a trap that leads to eternal destruction!
3. Such people fall into ‘many senseless and harmful desires’ (literally, ‘many illogical and harmful desires’ – it doesn’t even make sense!). These desires plunge people into ruin and destruction. These desires are like millstones that drown people into ruin and destruction – spiritual destruction (and often the breakdown of family, marriage, friendships, and more).

So, as you go shopping this holiday season, and as you receive gifts from others: beware. Discontentment and the desire for possessions are very, very dangerous.