Tag: discontent

The Quiet Sin That Still Shouts on Black Friday

Brent Pollard

For years, Black Friday earned its reputation not from ledgers but from battlegrounds—retail floors where human dignity took a backseat to door-buster deals. News cameras captured the spectacle: grown men and women trampling one another, wrestling over discounted electronics, shouting with voices hoarse from camping overnight in cold parking lots. The scenes were shocking precisely because they revealed something uncomfortable about ourselves.

Those chaotic stampedes have largely faded, replaced by the quieter click of online carts and the convenience of sales that stretch across entire weeks. Yet we would be naive to assume the spirit behind those frenzies has disappeared. Covetousness has not been conquered; it has merely changed costumes. It still prowls, perhaps more dangerously now because it moves in the shadows of normalcy.

Understanding Covetousness in a Consumer Culture

The Scriptures speak with clarity and force about covetousness. God inscribed it among the Ten Commandments—”You shall not covet” (Exodus 20.17)—placing it alongside murder and adultery as a fundamental breach of divine order. The apostle Paul equates it with idolatry (Colossians 3.5), and Jesus Himself warned that a person’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions (Luke 12.15). These are not casual observations. They are urgent warnings about a sin that destroys souls.

Yet covetousness may well be the most overlooked sin among professing Christians today. We have learned to identify sins that announce themselves—drunkenness carries an odor, anger has volume, and sexual immorality brings scandal. But covetousness? It wears the mask of prudence. It masquerades as ambition, self-care, or simply “keeping up.” In a world built on consumption, covetousness looks like Tuesday afternoon.

This is precisely what makes it lethal. When sin begins to look like normal living, we cease to call it sin at all. If the enemy of our souls seeks to neutralize the church without triggering alarms, covetousness serves as his preferred weapon—quiet, respectable, and devastatingly effective.

The Warning of Jesus: “Take Heed and Beware”

In Luke 12.15, our Lord issues a double warning with deliberate urgency: “Take heed, and beware of covetousness.” Two imperatives, one breath. Why such emphasis? Because Jesus understood what we often forget—that the human heart is perpetually vulnerable to the lie that more will satisfy.

Notice that Christ does not merely say “avoid” covetousness. He says take heed, which means to pay careful, sustained attention, and beware, which calls for active vigilance. This is not passive resistance but intentional, disciplined watchfulness. The implication is sobering: covetousness will not announce itself. It will arrive disguised as legitimate need, reasonable desire, or innocent comparison.

Let us be clear: Black Friday itself is not inherently sinful. Wisdom in stewardship often means seeking good value, and thoughtful purchasing can serve both family and generosity. The issue is not the calendar date or the transaction but the condition of the heart engaging in it. When we participate in the marketplace, do we do so with contentment and purpose, or with the restless craving that can never be filled?

The frenzy that once defined Black Friday—and the subtler compulsions that still drive much of our economic behavior—expose three spiritual dangers we dare not ignore.

Three Spiritual Dangers of Covetousness

Covetousness Normalizes Discontent

God calls His children to contentment (1 Timothy 6.6-8; Hebrews 13.5). Yet covetousness whispers constantly that what we have is insufficient. It trains us to focus not on what we possess but on what we lack. This is not mere pragmatic planning for the future; it is a spiritual disease that robs us of peace and gratitude in the present.

As has been observed, the man who has God and everything else has no more than the man who has God alone. Covetousness blinds us to this truth. It convinces us that one more purchase, one more upgrade, one more experience will finally deliver the satisfaction we seek. But the nature of covetousness is that it never delivers. It only promises.

Consider how advertising works: it manufactures dissatisfaction. Before the ad, you were content. After the ad, you feel incomplete without the product. This is spiritual warfare dressed in marketing language, and it works because our hearts are already fertile ground for discontent.

Covetousness Trains Us to Measure Worth by Possessions

Jesus teaches that life does not consist in the abundance of things (Luke 12.15). Yet covetousness reverses this wisdom, teaching us to evaluate ourselves and others based on what can be seen, touched, and posted online.

Someone seeking material possessions only creates for themselves a gilded prison. When our identity becomes intertwined with our acquisitions, we trap ourselves in an exhausting cycle of comparison and competition. We measure our worth not by God’s declaration of value through Christ but by fluctuating market standards.

This is practical idolatry. The accumulation of things becomes not merely a means to life but the meaning of life itself. And when this happens, we have exchanged the Creator for created things—precisely what Paul condemns in Romans 1.25.

Covetousness Weakens Our Gratitude

Perhaps nothing reveals the corrosive effect of covetousness more clearly than its assault on thanksgiving. The covetous heart cannot truly give thanks because it is perpetually focused on what it does not yet have. Gratitude looks backward and upward, recognizing God’s provision. Covetousness looks forward and laterally, cataloging deficiencies and envying neighbors.

This is why the day after Thanksgiving can be so spiritually jarring. One day we gather to express thanks for God’s blessings; the next, we rush to acquire more as if what we have is inadequate. The irony should not escape us. Covetousness turns thanksgiving into hypocrisy.

Fighting Covetousness With Eternal Treasure

How then do we fight? Not by suppressing desire—God created us with the capacity to want, to long, to pursue. The battle against covetousness is not won by desiring less but by desiring better things.

Jesus provides the antidote in Matthew 6.19-21: “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

This is not poetry; it is economics. Jesus is telling us to invest wisely. Earth’s treasures decay, disappoint, and ultimately disintegrate. Heaven’s treasures endure. The question is not whether we will treasure something—we cannot avoid doing so—but what we will treasure and where.

God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him. Covetousness is defeated not when we grit our teeth and endure deprivation but when we discover a satisfaction so profound that lesser things lose their grip. When Christ becomes our treasure, sales and upgrades and status symbols fade into their proper insignificance.

If we covet trivialities, it is because we have not yet tasted the goodness of God. We chase shadows because we have not yet stood in the light.

Practical Steps to Guard Against Covetousness

All truth must become actionable or it remains mere information. What then shall we do?

First, practice intentional gratitude. Before making any significant purchase, pause to list what God has already provided. This simple discipline reorients the heart from scarcity to abundance.

Second, examine your motives. Ask: Am I buying this because I need it, or because I want what someone else has? Am I seeking to fill a legitimate need, or am I trying to fill a spiritual void with material things?

Third, give generously. Nothing breaks the power of covetousness faster than open-handed generosity. When we give, we declare that God—not possessions—is our source and security.

Fourth, fast from consumption. Consider seasons of deliberate simplicity. Skip sales. Avoid browsing. Create space to discover that you already have enough.

Fifth, redirect your desires. Cultivate hunger for spiritual realities—Scripture, prayer, fellowship, service. Feed your soul the bread of life so that the world’s junk food loses its appeal.

The Greatest Bargain Ever Offered

Black Friday will come and go with its sales, advertisements, and temptations. The receipts will fade, the products will break, and the cycle will repeat. But the danger of covetousness remains, not just on one day but every day we draw breath in this consumer culture.

Yet hear the good news: The greatest bargain ever offered is still available, and it requires no credit card. A life emptied of covetousness and filled with Christ is a life money cannot buy. This treasure is free to all who will receive it, paid for not by our purchasing power but by the precious blood of Jesus Christ.

God offers us satisfaction that lasts, joy that endures, and treasure that neither moth nor rust can destroy. The transaction is complete. The price is paid. The only question is whether we will stop chasing shadows long enough to embrace the substance.

May we be a people who treasure Christ above all things, who find in Him a satisfaction so complete that the world’s bargains become irrelevant. For in Him we have already received everything—and what we have cannot be improved by any sale, upgraded by any purchase, or diminished by any economy.

Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Choose wisely.

How Happy Are You?

Carl Pollard

Are you happy? On a daily basis, how do you usually feel? Anxious, tired, drained, sad, joyful? I was reading a report done on overall happiness and joy here in the US. The past four years it hit an all time low. Do you know what year Americans were happiest? Studies have shown that in 1957, people were by and large much happier than today and really at any point in US history. Why 1957? That year the average house at the time was a third of the size we live in today. The average salary was less than 4,000 a year. Life expectancy was 69 years. So why is it that even though homes were smaller, salaries were so modest, and life expectancy was 10 years shorter than today, people by and large much happier than today?

Maybe it’s because joy has never and will never be attached to physical possessions. We are losing our joy at an astounding rate. Even in the church, where we claim to have access to the peace of God and eternal life, joy can be far too elusive.

In Nehemiah 8:10, Nehemiah the Governor of Judah has just finished leading the Israelites in building the new wall around Jerusalem. They have returned from captivity and have what seems like a fresh start. One of the ways they show their gratitude was by gathering together to have Ezra read the books of Moses to them.

Nehemiah is doing some of the greatest work he could possibly choose to do. He used to be a cupbearer, but now he is leading the Israelites back to a relationship with God. After the reading of Scripture, notice what Nehemiah says, “Then he said to them, “Go your way. Eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions to anyone who has nothing ready, for this day is holy to our Lord. And do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”

Why this reminder to the people? Because God’s people NEED joy! One of Satan’s first lines of attack to weaken our efforts in serving God is to take our joy. Psalm 16:11 reminds us where joy is found: “you will show me the path of life: in your presence is fulness of joy; at your right hand there are pleasures for evermore.”

I agree with the psalmist and I can confidently say joy is found in the presence of God! He has used His word, and time spent in prayer to give me encouragement and strength.

With Thanksgiving today, be especially thankful for the joy that comes from being a child of God!

The Art Of Contentment

Neal Pollard

Paul mastered the art of contentment despite extreme adversity. Behind prison bars he wrote, “I have learned to be content…” (Phil. 4:11). It didn’t come naturally to him. He learned it in the proverbial “school of hard knocks.” Contentment suggests the idea of supporting oneself without aid from others. Vincent adds, “By the power of his own will, to resist the shock of circumstance. Paul is self-sufficient through the power of the self; not he, but Christ in him” (459-460).

Everybody has met malcontents. Such are rarely happy, satisfied, or appeased. They are always holding the short end of the stick. They are forever the victim. From their point of view, nothing seems satisfactory. Aren’t they such fun?

The church where they are attending is always deficient in some way. The leadership is not enough of this and too much of that. The same applies to the Bible school, worship services, preacher, song leader, missionaries, facilities, deacons, or programs of work. Others find them a mine field, and interacting with them is comparable to walking on egg shells.

Malcontents have failed to grow in the important spiritual area Paul references in Philippians. The sniping and yelping of the discontented interferes with the good it can do. It is destructive, divisive, discouraging, and devilish. John Bunyan concluded, “If we have not quiet in our minds, outward comfort will do no more for us than a golden slipper on a gouty foot.” Or, as another put it, “The crown of life looks funny on a sore head.”

In an English cemetery stand two sad epitaphs on slabs of granite. The wife’s reads, “She died for want of things.” Her husband’s says, “He died trying to give them to her.” No doubt the man never made her happy because he had not the power. Only she did. Sadly, she never exercised what Paul did in adverse circumstances.

Perhaps Paul wrote above the howl of a dying fellow-prisoner in the squalor of a dirty cell, looking up to see the scowl of a godless prison guard. Perhaps, with Christlike peace, he shook his head, smiled, and sealed up that inspired epistle to the church at Philippi. Perhaps, there persecuted but not forsaken (cf. 2 Cor. 4:9), he sang a hymn (cf. Acts 16:25). Whatever happened, one thing is certain. Paul found a way to be content. Let us learn that.