Everything??!

I know that some people think I'm crazy already.
Some people think I'm crazy because I am a follower of Christ.
Some people think I'm crazy because I quit a perfectly good job to go back to school.
Some people think I'm crazy because I have a collection of frog stuff

So that being said, I have been doing a lot of reading of Jesus' teachings lately. Do you know how many times he said to sell everything and give it to the poor? I don't have the number right in front of me but it was a lot.

Take Luke 12:

Then Jesus said to his disciples: "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. Life is more than food, and the body more than clothes. Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds! Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?....Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

And later in Chapter 18

A certain ruler asked him, "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"
"Why do you call me good?" Jesus answered. "No one is good—except God alone. You know the commandments: 'Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother.'"
"All these I have kept since I was a boy," he said.
When Jesus heard this, he said to him, "You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."
When he heard this, he became very sad, because he was a man of great wealth.

there are lots of other places Jesus said the same types of things...go ahead look it up, I won't be offended.

So the question is.... was He serious?
I'm sure I could finally read the book that someone gave me by one of those Christianity = Blessing guys and blessing guy would explain that Jesus didn't mean EVERYTHING.

That would be crazy. There is likely some rational explanation to explain this strange code that Jesus is using when He says "Sell it all"

hmm... But what would the world look like if all Christians did this? Call me a crazy idealist.
Ok forget everyone else. Do I have the faith to sell everything and trust that God would take care of me?

I'm not there yet.... just in case you pass by my house and see the for sale sign.
But maybe I'm getting there.


edit - after I posted - I read this... striking evidence that I have it wrong

Want the good news or the bad?

Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. writes:

Sometimes the bad news is the good news. So it is with the report that retail sales are down by 0.1 percent in July, the sharpest drop in many months.

Why good news? It means that consumers are starting to cut back. They could be going into less debt. They might be saving more. They are being more careful about long-term plans pending short-term trends.

I don't know if people are really learning anything - or if things are just so bad that something has to change....sort of reading the manual after you have spent hours claiming you "know what your doing" reading it once dosen't mean you will pick it up the next time you open the Ikea box.

The article isn't actually annoucing that any big change is happeing, but more challenges the way we somtimes interpret data. It caught my attention because I sort of hope that maybe people will start to change the way they spend money.... well I can hope right?