Keeping Your Eyes on Christ

Matthew 16:26 (NIV)

What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?

Patrice Moore was a collector. He kept everything. Moore lived a reclusive life in a 10-by-10 foot room where he compulsively saved newspapers, magazines, books, catalogs, and junk mail.

On December 27, 2003, it all came crashing down on him-literally. An avalanche of Moore's stuff trapped him, standing up, in his room for two days before neighbors heard him moaning and called the fire department. He was rescued by police, three companies of firefighters, and officials from New York City's Office of Emergency Management.

Neighbors heard Moore moaning through his front door, which had been barricaded shut by the weight of all that paper. Neighbors and firefighters hauled out 50 garbage bags of paper for an hour just to reach him.

Interviewed in the hospital where he was recovering from leg injuries suffered when his collection collapsed on him, he said: "I had to squeeze inside my apartment," he said of his 10-by-10-foot room, which rents for $250 a month. "I don't know how I lived that way."

Ron Alford a New York City counselor and author of "Disposophobia: The Fear of Getting Rid of Stuff" said: "It's an affliction, it's really a disease;" Alford said. "It starts in the head of the people and manifests somewhere on the floor and on horizontal surfaces in their dwelling units."

The love of things can kill us. We need to say "No!" to earthly things and keep our eyes on Christ.

Dear Lord, help us seek after and keep our eyes on the things that last eternally. In Jesus’ name, Amen.