Being without a job and a reliable source of income has forced me to cut back spending and dial down costs to as close as possible to zero. But the whole issue of consumerism and buying is something I’ve had an uneasy relationship with for a long time.

I used to be a compulsive spender. From the time I was a kid, as soon as I had money, I’d look for ways to spend it. Money equaled spending power, and spending power equaled those new things that would make me happy and make my life complete. Until more recently than I care to think about, that’s been my default way of looking at income.

Of course becoming an adult has forced me to take a slightly more responsible attitude toward money. I can’t buy everything I want or splash out on an expensive vacation, because I need to pay the rent and buy food. But over and above necessities, the compulsive pull to buy something, anything, to make myself feel better, even if I don’t need it, is what I’m talking about.

All of us know what that feeling is like. The feeling you get when you see something that you know that you need. It’s new, it’s beautiful, it’s shiny, and you’re convinced that buying it will make you happy, make your life complete. The fact that you already have five similar somethings at home, which at one time were going to make you happy and make your life complete, doesn’t really occur to you. The only thing you can think about right here and now is this one that you don’t have. Surely this will be it.

You convince yourself that you need it, you deserve it, it doesn’t hurt, you have enough money. So you spend the money. You take the new thing home. For a while, it provides the “high” a shiny new object is supposed to. Then it gradually fades into the background. It becomes just another possession, kicking around with all the others you have. Something you use, maybe every day, and which may or may not be useful, but which doesn’t mean as much as when it was new and not yours.

Then you see another something. A beautiful, shiny, brand-new something. And it takes hold of your heart. It pulls at you until you can’t resist. You convince yourself you want it, you need it, it will make your life complete. You forget that the last one was going to do that for you, but it hasn’t. So you buy it. And on and on the cycle goes.

For many of us women, these things are makeup, clothes, or jewelry. For men, it may be video games or gadgets. There’s an endless list of “things” on offer that we can be easily persuaded we need to buy, depending on our particular inclinations.

What’s worse, it’s endemic to our culture. We’re surrounded by messages that tell us we need a constant stream of new things—the latest luxuries, the most fashionable clothes—to keep our lives comfortable and convenient and make us content.

The problem with all of this, for the Christian, is that it’s radically at odds with the kind of life Jesus calls us to live.

2000 years ago, when Jesus walked the earth, covetousness—the desire for more and more “stuff”—was already as old as mankind. It didn’t begin with western culture, cheap manufacturing, and the shopping mall. Jesus analyzed this particular spiritual sickness and warned us against it:

“Then he said to them, "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions." (Luke 12:15)

The Apostle Paul is even stronger in his letter to the Ephesians:

“But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints….For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.” (Ephesians 5:3-5)

Ouch! Covetousness equated with idolatry? Listed with sexual immorality? Covetous (the NIV translates it “greedy”) people aren’t part of God’s kingdom?

Why?

Well, because what is important to us, what we spend our time pursuing, what we think about and devote our energy to, reveals what really holds our heart.

Worship is devotion or service to a particular entity or end, hoping for it to give us the results we crave. If we spend our time, energy, thought and money acquiring new stuff, hoping that it will fulfill us, make us happy, or take away the empty hole inside, we in effect are worshiping it.

We may not bow down to wooden idols. But we are far more in danger of bowing down to Wal-Mart.

The endless pursuit of things—treasure in this world—dulls us to spiritual realities and keeps us on a treadmill of desire and acquisition that distracts and deters us from God’s calling.

There are obvious realities we can face that can help cut the power of this kind of thinking. For one thing, we actually need far less than we think we do. A trip to Africa convinced me of that. I met people from the bush for whom a discarded tin can was a prize possession because it could be used as a water cup.

Another reality is that things can’t make us happy, or fulfill us. If they could, we wouldn’t endlessly need more.

But to truly cut the power of materialism over us, we need a spiritual perspective. We need power from above, we need heaven’s reality, to break the hold of “stuff” and to fix our eyes on what really matters.

One piece of that reality is that this life is temporary and not worth living for. When we endlessly accumulate things, we are acting as if our life in this world is forever. We forget that not only are we going to die, we are going to spend eternity in a kingdom where our once-treasured earthly belongings turned into ashes long ago. Hoarding “stuff” is acting like our existence on this earth is the ultimate reality.

Jesus exposed the futility of that way of thinking when he told the parable of the rich man who plotted to build new barns. That night, God required his soul of him. His beautiful new barns were of no use to him and he went to face God’s judgment where he had to give an account of the resources that had been entrusted to him.

Jesus explained how to prevent this kind of cosmic “uh-oh” moment when he said: “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.” (Matthew 6:18-20)

But even more pertinently, we need to ask ourselves why we’re so driven to possess and consume without end. Why do “things” hold such power over us?

The answer, I believe, is that we are trying to fill the void inside us. It may sound cliché, but we all have an inward emptiness that we seek to numb and eradicate with many things, including stuff. I know that’s the case for me. When I’m depressed, I shop. Or I’m convinced that if I buy that new dress, everyone will think I’m beautiful.

What kind of need are you trying to fill with “things”? This is the heart of why we accumulate. Understanding this will cut its power at the source. External solutions are never the way. Jesus is always after our heart.

When you understand the void inside you, there’s only one way to fill it. There’s only one way to satisfy it from the inside, so that the temptation to throw “stuff” into it doesn’t become overwhelming. That void must be filled with God himself, and he’s the only one who can fill it.

One passage from Hebrews became my weapon against “stuff”:

“Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, ‘Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you." So we say with confidence, ‘The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?’” (Hebrews 13:5-6)

Isn’t that genius?

The answer to the power of stuff is just this: GOD HIMSELF IS OUR POSSESSION. He’s given himself to us, and he will never leave us or forsake us. With him on our side, and within us, we have everything we need. Who wants things when you have the Almighty God?

He is more than enough to fill us with the love we crave, with the comfort we seek, with the reassurance we need. When the void inside us screams for satisfaction with “stuff” (or any other temptation), turn to him instead. Cast yourself on him for the grace you need to make it through, to feel his peace and joy and love and fatherhood, and to resist another day the spiritual poisons and the idols that beckon you. He’ll do it. If you fall, he’ll forgive and comfort you. He’s that kind of God.