3,972,603 Movie Tickets

Every day, Americans buy an average of 3,972,603 movie tickets. We buy 1,683,835 songs online. We order 1,650,000 DVD's from Netflix. We pop 978,030 bags of Orville Redenbacher's Gourmet popcorn. We hit 568,764 Titleist golf balls. We eat 443,650 orders of large fries from Burger King. We buy 160,968 bottles of Absolut Vodka and 7,500 Samsung LCD tvs. Oh, and we buy 60 Ford Mustangs on ebay. What does that equation add up to in life? Sure sounds like a lot of junk (although I hope next year's average on tvs adds up to 7501-including mine).

I sure hope the equation of my day-in and day-out life adds up to more than junk! How about you? But the writer of Hebrews says that a lot of our daily life is junk. It just doesn't add up to much. Hebrews 13:9 says, "Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings...which are of no value..." So I guess the idea is that we are to add valuable things into the equation of life and subtract worthless things. What's worthless? Any daily practice, belief, habit, sin or obsession that stunts your spiritual growth and maturity would count since the goal of Hebrews is to teach us how to mature as disciples of Jesus Christ.

I don't know about you, but I am a sucker for Burger King french fries. I like a lot of things you don't read about in the Bible. No, Jesus did not ride into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday in a convertable Ford Mustang! Sorry. That's not the point anyway so go ahead and get one. Here's the point: IF your life choices don't add up to the discipleship God expects, then it is time to change the equation.