Exodus 19:16-25, 20, 21:1-21; Matthew 23:13-39; Psalms 28:1-9; Proverbs 7:1-5

“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.” (Exodus 20:17 NIV)

As part of my FYP on TikTok, I’ve been getting a lot of finance management content, including the Dave Ramsey show. I love to listen to the callers: they will be 10’s, if not 100’s of thousands of dollars in debt, calling in to ask Dave Ramsey or his co-hosts what they should do to obtain financial freedom. I’m always intrigued when they talk about the cost of their car loans, their home, but most significantly, their credit card debit.

In the age of social media, coveting your neighbor’s things is easier than ever. Why do you think influencer culture is so prevalent? It’s a system of creating the perfect life–beautiful clothes, wonderful vacations, adorable families–all to make you think “I want that!” and sell you whatever product/lifestyle they’re peddling. In a consumerist society, this works well. We are trained to want the latest and greatest–we see the perfectly curated homes and think to ourselves how much easier life would be if we were like that. So we buy, buy, buy, spending more than we make to “keep up with the Kardashians” (yes, Kardashian is intentional) and slowly go further and further into debt or repeat consumerism.

And when we get too much stuff, we get bigger houses, or apartments, or storage units, or start throwing away things we find “undesirable.” I wonder how many Stanley and Starbucks tumblers will end up in a landfill some day, replaced by the next “it” item.

The world wants you to want. The enemy wants you to want, to spend, and to create a system of debt in your life that is unsustainable and stressful. The enemy wants you to feel like you are missing out, and that life would be so much better if you “just had that one thing.” The enemy knows that this kind of lifestyle is empty, and he wants you to be empty.

I very much have fallen into this trap before. The aesthetic of The Home Edit is absolutely gorgeous to me, but I don’t need the price tag of a bunch of clear plastic bins. And I absolutely do not need the stress of emptying my groceries into a different container every time I go shopping. I would have loved for our first home to be larger–but we decided a number we wanted to spend on our mortgage each month, and I was incredibly proud of us for staying on target and not getting swept up in what we were told we “could” afford.

I don’t have an answer on how to completely avoid this temptation when our society is build on consumerism. And while money in itself if not inherently bad, we know that the Bible warns us about the temptation surrounding money. So I think the thing we need to ask ourselves is, what actually matters to me?

Does it matter to me to have an esthetic home? What am I letting go of in order to have this?

Does it matter to me to have a nice car? How will I save so I can afford car payments?

Remember, these things will be rendered “obsolete” and you’ll receive advertisements for the “next best thing” shortly after you settle in. You’ll be made to think that thing is no longer working for you and you need to upgrade/renovate/change. But I’m absolutely not here to judge what you believe to be truly important. That’s between you and the Lord, and He will absolutely guide you if you ask for it.

Today, let’s do that. Let’s take a hard look at our FYP’s and see what we are allowing to be advertised to us and who we are allowing to persuade us. Let’s ask the Lord what HE thinks is important and how we can shift our mindset to fit into His will. And then let’s let go of the rest. Let’s let go of the need to fit in–of the need to keep up–of the need to compare. I promise that only then the Lord will show us what we truly need, and he will provide. And when we aren’t trying to keep up with everyone around us, we will find the peace and joy that comes with trusting the Lord with everything, even with our purchases.