The Golden iPhone - Copper Will Do.

Apple's iPhone is scheduled to release on June 29th. You can watch the promo video here.

Susheel Daswani, attorney in San Francisco, makes no qualms about it,

"I've always had a huge case of gear lust for the iPhone. If I don't get one...Friday, I'll be utterly disappointed" (USA Today, June 25, 2007, 4B).

Gear lust. Utter disappointment. Unfortunately, I was there at one time. Maybe not utter disappointment, but the mindset was there. However, do in large part to God's using this man, I now have an internal war over lusting for other things more that I lust for fellowship with the Trinity and how that relationship actually plays out in my love for others over my love for gadgets.

God gives us money not so we can pound it into golden idols, but so we can use it as a means to being utterly delighted in Him in our God-lust and other's being gifted with a God-lust. By God's grace copper will do!

If you want learn what it means to have a pilgrim mindset with a war-time lifestyle. Go here and bathe in the gold of God's perspective on the almightly dollar. Below is one excerpt of the resources therein.

Lavish Giving, Loving Guests, Living Christ

Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. Romans 12:13

How do you live when you know and feel that the mercy of God, obtained by the death of his Son, is the source of your life past, present, and future? That’s the question Romans 12 answers. Notice verse 1 again: “I appeal to you therefore, brothers,by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice . . .” I appeal to you therefore. “Therefore”—on the basis of everything I have shown you in chapters 1-11 about God’s wrath and mercy, about Christ’s deity and death and resurrection and reign and intercession for you, about the Holy Spirit poured out with love into your hearts, about justification by faith alone and how we are counted righteous because of one man’s obedience, about the sovereign power of God that governs the universe and works all things together for your good and will never let anything separate you from the love of Christ—therefore, because of these mercies, give your body to God and live like this.

Romans 12 is a description of how we live when we know and feel the truth that we deserve nothing but misery forever, but instead, because of Christ, we have the promise that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing to glory that will be revealed to us (Romans 8:18). Romans 12 is the way you live when you have been broken because of your sin—when you have said with the apostle Paul, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:24)—and then, after being broken, you have discovered that in Christ God is for you and not against you, and that neither tribulation, nor distress, nor persecution, nor famine, nor nakedness, nor danger, nor sword can separate you from the love of Christ and from everlasting joy. Romans 12 is how you live when you know this Christ-bought, broken-hearted joy.

The Issue of How to Handle Our Money and Possessions

One of the great issues of life facing Christians in every age, and especially in times and places of great prosperity (like 21st century America) is how to think about and feel about and handle our money and our possessions. For Jesus this was simply huge. He spoke about it over and over again. He gave promises and warnings and commandments. He rebuked people bent on bigger and bigger barns for the sake of their ease. He told stories and parables. By hoarding possessions, he said, you can perish, and by giving them you can lay up treasures in heaven. How we handle our money and possessions is the barometer of how we trust God and treasure Christ. Where you treasure is, there will your heart be also.

How Crucial Are Giving and Hospitality?

Is it really that crucial? Is it near the center of life in Christ—giving to the needs of the saints and welcoming people into your home as v. 13 says?

Randy Alcorn says so well, “God prospers me not to raise my standard of living, but to raise my standard of giving” [The Treasure Principle (Sisters, Oregon: Multnomah, 2001], 71).

In answer to the first question: yes, giving lavishly and loving guests is near the heart of what it means to walk as a Christian. I appeal to you by the mercies of God, give generously and open your homes to the saints.

What Prevents Giving and Hospitality?

What stands in the way for us to do better at giving and at hospitality?

Four reasons we don’t give as we ought:

1. Obliviousness. For whatever reason, you may have never even thought about giving away your money regularly. It never occurred to you that this is part of worship (verse 1). The height of virtue for you is, “Thou shalt not steal.” Good start. But now God is calling you to hear the New Testament command. Not just: Don’t take what’s not yours, but give what is yours. “Contribute to the needs of the saints.” “Let him who contributes do so generously.” Don’t be oblivious anymore.
2. Carelessness. Perhaps we are not oblivious. We know this is what people who love Christ do. But we just never seem to get around to planning how much and when and where to give. Things just slide. God has appointed this message to bring you to a critical new place in your walk with him this week. Don’t be careless. Be thoughtful. Be intentional.
3. Greed—the desire to keep more than we need. The spirit of greed groans when it gives. It thinks of all the things we could buy if we didn’t give. The biblical alternative to this is not disciplined groaning. The alternative is a new heart and the joy of being free from the bondage of greed. It’s the glad experience that it is more blessed to give than to receive (Acts 20:35). Don’t live in the bondage of greed. Be free.
4. Fear that we won’t have what we need. Fear is the flip side of greed. Greed focuses on what we don’t have but would like to have. Fear focuses on the consequences of not having what we need to have. The answer to greed is the pleasure of Christ’s presence. The answer to fear is the certainty of Christ’s promise. Don’t live in fear. Be satisfied with Christ, and trust his promises.

How Do We Break Free in Order to Give Lavishly and to Open Our Homes?

The point of God’s providence is the point of his promises: trust me, and go beyond in ministry and in giving what you think you can.

What Are the Rewards or Giving Lavishly and Opening Our Homes?

Finally, our fourth question: what are the rewards if we trust God’s promises, give lavishly, and open our homes to each other and the needy?

1. The suffering of the saints will be relieved or at least diminished. That is what verse 12 means when it says, “Contribute to the needs of the saints.” We lift a burden. We relieve stress. We give hope. And that’s a reward!
2. The glory of God is displayed. Matthew 5:16 “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” Lavish giving and open homes display the glory and the goodness and the worth of God in your life. The reason God gives us money and homes is so that by the way we use them people can see they are not our God. But God is our God. And our treasure.
3. More thanksgiving to God is unleashed. 2 Corinthians 9:12, “The ministry of this service is not only supplying the needs of the saints, but is also overflowing in many thanksgivings to God.” God has given us money and homes not just so that we are thankful, but by our generosity and hospitality to make many people thankful to God.
4. Our love for God and his love in us is confirmed. 1 John 3:17, “If anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him?” In other words, when we give generously and open our homes, the love of God is confirmed in our lives. We are real. We are not phony Christians.
5. Finally, we lay up treasure in heaven. Luke 12:33-34. “Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail. . . . For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”