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dubious business deals, all in an endeavour to win the praise of people. How sad it is that
this insatiable desire, when it takes over, only leaves behind it, a trail of sadness and
devastation.
The culture in which we live today does not do anything to help us in this regard. Just look
at some of the adverts we watch on TV. Many of them are based upon the need to be
popular and therefore will advertise a particular deodorant or car and tell you that you
need to have these things in order to be accepted and be liked by people. Billions of rand is
made every year selling products that pander at the pool of popularity.
It is all very well to be warned of these things and I’m not sure that we do a good enough job
doing that. But I do know too that when we are popular with people, it could well mean that
we lose our popularity with God.
Prayer Thought: Once again I remind you that the foundation of the Beatitudes is humility.
All these desires as natural and as normal as they may be, when they get corrupted can hinder
the “blessedness” of the “beatitudinal” position. Let’s pray today that we would be more aware
of these things and protect ourselves in our attitudes and our actions against them.

Wednesday
Reading: Luke 12 v 13 – 21
The third corrupted hunger which I would like to focus upon today is the insatiable hunger
there is amongst many for POSSESSIONS.
Jesus spoke at length and on many occasions about this particular hunger. He warns us in
places very explicitly about falling into the clutches of living an over-desirous life for
possessions. He talks about possessions in the context of being things that will distract from
the Kingdom of God. He talks about possessions as being unnecessary in light of God’s
willingness and ability to give us all that we need. He told some horror stories about people
who sacrificed all the valuable things in life for things that, at the end of the day, have no
value at all. In the above parable Jesus highlights the foolishness of hungering and thirsting
for more “stuff”. In real life Jesus was confronted with the behaviour of Judas, who has to be
the greatest example ever of someone who got “ripped off”. He sold Jesus for 30 pieces of
silver – that was a very poor trade and he suffered from a severe dose of “seller’s remorse”.
So much so that it ended in him taking his own life. In order to make this point even clearer,
might I refer to Demas who was once an avid follower of Jesus and a great support to the
apostle Paul. But Paul in reference to Demas, in 2 Timothy 4 v 10, speaks of him as having
abandoned him [Paul] because he [Demas] loved the things of the world too much. It is such
a subtle temptation because it looks so “ok” to want to have more possessions, but at the