Lessons I'm Learning: If I have Christ, I have everything

As we have simplified our expenses over the past couple of years, but most in the recent months, and let go of those things that I thought were necessities, have really given me perspective.  I can get lost in the things of the world.  I can look around my at what God has blessed others with, and think that is the standard.  There have definitely been hard moments of "letting" go, don't get me wrong, especially when certain things have become more the norm.

But what I've come to see over the past couple of months, is that if I have Christ, I have everything!  It doesn't matter if I can't buy new clothes, a bigger house, the newest things.  In the end, everything in this world will pass away.  And at the end of my life, I can take nothing from this world with me.  But if I have Christ, I have all of God's promises to me in heaven and on earth.   

Matthew 6: 19-24
"“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

22 “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, 23 but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!

24 “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money."

I want to lay up treasures in heaven, and not on earth.  God says very clearly, that I cannot serve both God and money.  So if I am loving money, then I am hating God, and if I love God, I must hate money.  God is helping our family to grow toward loving Him more than money.  More on this later, but it's been a journey teaching our children a life of simplicity as well.