Merriam Webster defines luxury as:
1: a condition of abundance or great ease and comfort : sumptuous environment lived in luxury
2a : something adding to pleasure or comfort but not absolutely necessary one of life's luxuries
b : an indulgence in something that provides pleasure, satisfaction, or ease
It wouldn't take long for me to come up with a full list of luxury items that I take for granted. When we lived on Oahu in 2013 we were in a one bedroom apartment. I learned that I can live without a lot of the luxurious stuff that I think of as necessities.
Ask anyone in a shelter in Texas today and luxuries are the least of their worries - clothes, shoes, a place to sleep and a warm meal feel luxurious when you've lost everything. Folks in Florida evacuating before Hurricane Irma are deciding what to pack up and what to leave behind.
In 1994 we were hit by the Northridge Earthquake. I wrote about it following the earthquake in Haiti in 2010 and said, "The dishes we lost were more than most Haitians will own in a lifetime." In 2003 Les was in a bicycle accident and the following day a fire devoured the hill behind our house. In an email to friends and family I wrote this, "I decided to start packing things at that time. If you've never had to determine what is really important in your life and what is not, a fire in the neighborhood will help you do that very quickly. I loaded about 3 boxes of pictures and financial records in the back of our van and decided everything else what just that - things!"
The truth is most of us love our stuff more than we should. Our "creature comforts" make life easy. But Jesus said, "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." (Matthew 6:19-21)
Paul said in 2 Corinthians 4:7, "But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us." John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible says this, "The Gospel is called a "treasure" which is so styled, because it contains rich truths, and an abundance of them; comparable to gold, silver, and precious stones, for the price of them, their antiquity, distance of place from whence they come, and their duration; because it has in it rich blessings, spiritual ones, the blessings of the new covenant, solid, substantial, and irreversible ones, and a fulness of them; and because it consists of exceeding great and precious promises, of more worth than thousands of gold and silver; free, absolute, and unconditional ones, which are yea and amen in Christ, and relate both to this, and the other world; and also because it exhibits and shows forth to us the riches of God and of Christ, of grace and of glory; which are unsearchable, substantial, satisfying, and durable."
Take this whole world but give me Jesus! There's nothing more valuable than the treasure of knowing Him.
