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Practicing the Way with John Mark Comer

Teaching | Simplicity of Stuff | Simplicity E04

Practicing the Way with John Mark Comer

Practicing the Way

Christianity, Religion & Spirituality

4.91.9K Ratings

🗓️ 24 February 2023

⏱️ 43 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

"The more we have, the more we want."

John Mark examines how our never-ending desire can lead to lives of discontentment and dissatisfaction, but how the practices of desiring less and generosity can help us practice simplicity and lay hold of Jesus’s promise of life to the full.


Key Scripture Passage: 1 Timothy 6v2-19


Resources for this practice:

https://practicingthewayarchives.org/practices/simplicity


This podcast and its episodes are paid for by The Circle, our community of monthly givers. Special thanks for today’s episode goes to: Kali from Silver Lake, Kansas; Morgan from Nashville, Tennessee; Joshua from Whitefish, Montana; Dan from Stamford, Lincolnshire; and Jerod from Fairhope, Alabama. Thank you all so much!

If you’d like to pay it forward and contribute toward future resources, you can learn more at practicingtheway.org/give.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Welcome to the John Mark Comer

0:03.0

teachings podcast by practicing the way.

0:05.0

This teaching was originally given at

0:08.6

Bridgetown Church in Portland, Oregon

0:10.7

as a part of the simplicity practice. Any fans out there of the indie darling band Foster the People? I was listening to their song

0:26.3

Ask Yourself off the supermodel record and I was struck by the chorus lyric and you say

0:32.1

that dreamers always get what they desire.

0:36.0

Well I've found the more I want the less I've got.

0:41.0

Is this the life you've been waiting for? Or are you hoping that you'll be where you want with a little more?

0:49.0

Can you, any of you relate at all, do you feel like you'll be where you want with a little more.

0:55.8

A little more money in your paycheck, a little more cushion in your savings or retirement,

1:01.6

a little more square footage in your house, a little more stuff in your

1:05.2

home or closet. Foster the People's Lyrrhic is just a remix of the age-old maxim.

1:11.5

The more you get, the more you say it with me, the more you want.

1:16.2

This is a truth that cuts across the human condition.

1:19.8

We've done work on human desire and how human desire is infinite.

1:23.4

We at a theological level, we were made by God and for God.

1:29.2

And so nothing less than full participation

1:32.4

in the inner life of the Trinity that is God himself.

1:36.0

Nothing less will ever satisfy our desire.

1:41.0

And when we move our desire, or if you prefer another word for that is our love

1:46.2

off of God the Creator and onto the creation onto things even if they are, be it money or stuff or work or status or fame or

...

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