昨天我们谈论神透过金钱来实现四个基本的目的，而第一个目的是提供我们生活上的基本需要，今天我们要继续来思想这个课题。我们昨天看到神渴望我们倚靠祂，这不是因为神有占有欲，而是因为祂知道，我们单单倚靠祂的时候就会经历最大的快乐和自由。当我们不明白自己需要神的时候，便会失去对神的爱。我们越失去对神的爱，就会越倚靠自己。

让我再次提醒你我们昨天所看过的经文：「只要有衣有食，就当知足」（提前六8）。知足是因为知道自己的基本需要得到供应而感到满足。然而，若我们将自己所有的，与别人所拥有的作比较的时候，就失去了知足，欲望很快的会成为我们所注意的焦点。我们的欲望越多，就越不懂得知足。

懂得对基本需要感到知足的其中一个好处是，它会帮助我们抵抗诱人的广告。那些广告总是企图在说服我们，让我们以为除非购买了他们的新产品，不然的话就不能真正的享受生活。知足的人能够感到富足是因为他知道自己已经拥有日常生活的所需。有一位资深的宣教士在会见一些宣教工场的新人时，说了一些令人惊讶的话，他说：「我要你们做的第一件事，就是列出你们认为需要的东西，然后我会让你们看到如何在没有这些东西下生活。」

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."