昨天我們談論神透過金錢來實現四個基本的目的，而第一個目的是提供我們生活上的基本需要，今天我們要繼續來思想這個課題。我們昨天看到神渴望我們倚靠祂，這不是因為神有佔有慾，而是因為祂知道，我們單單倚靠祂的時候就會經歷最大的快樂和自由。當我們不明白自己需要神的時候，便會失去對神的愛。我們越失去對神的愛，就會越倚靠自己。

讓我再次提醒你我們昨天所看過的經文：「只要有衣有食，就當知足」（提前六8）。知足是因為知道自己的基本需要得到供應而感到滿足。然而，若我們將自己所有的，與別人所擁有的作比較的時候，就失去了知足，慾望很快的會成為我們所注意的焦點。我們的慾望越多，就越不懂得知足。

懂得對基本需要感到知足的其中一個好處是，它會幫助我們抵抗誘人的廣告。那些廣告總是企圖在說服我們，讓我們以為除非購買了他們的新產品，不然的話就不能真正的享受生活。知足的人能夠感到富足是因為他知道自己已經擁有日常生活的所需。有一位資深的宣教士在會見一些宣教工場的新人時，說了一些令人驚訝的話，他說：「我要你們做的第一件事，就是列出你們認為需要的東西，然後我會讓你們看到如何在沒有這些東西下生活。」

We continue meditating on the first of God's four purposes for money to provide our basic needs. We saw yesterday that God longs for us to be dependent on Him. This is not because God is possessive, but because He knows that we experience our greatest happiness and freedom when we rely on Him alone. When we fail to recognise our need for God, we tend to lose our love for God. And the more we lose our love for God, the more we come to depend upon ourselves.

Permit me to remind you again of the text we looked at yesterday: "If we have food and clothing, we will be content" (1 Tim. 6:8). Contentment is the satisfaction we get from knowing there will be provision for our basic needs. We begin to lose our contentment when we compare what we have with what others have - and then before long expectations dominate our focus. To the degree that our expectations increase, contentment diminishes.

One of the great advantages of being content with basics is that it equips us to resist the alluring advertising which seeks to convince us that we are not able really to enjoy life unless we buy some new commodity. A contented person feels wealthy because he knows that what he already possesses is all he needs for daily living. A veteran missionary, meeting some new recruits to the mission field, surprised them by saying: "The first thing I would like you to do is to make a list of all the things you think you need - then I will spend some time with you showing you how to do without them."