This week is Amazon Prime Day(s). The giant online retailer is reducing the cost of just about everything. I did splurge. I bought a lightweight ironing board (yes, I still iron), and a new lightweight iron (since mine has sprung a leak). I also got a new Kindle book that I’d been looking at for only $1.49. Oh, and I ordered more recordable CDs for the church. Other than that, I’ve avoided the website temptations.
Amazon has reached mega-status as a retailer primarily by catering to the consumer’s appetites. It sells everything that is sold by everyone else, but at discount rates. It has driven many of the brick and mortar stores out of business and is now infringing on delivery companies. Our neighborhood is flooded with Amazon “Prime” vans daily. Amazon has become a giant and other companies now try to compete by employing its business model.
I wonder, however, if the Amazon “business model” hasn’t also invaded the church. Instead of manifesting the truth and supernatural power of our God, we have become too much like the world. We cater to the world’s appetites. We crave the world’s approval. We measure by the world’s standards. We give people what they want, rather than what they need, often discounting the price of truth in the process.
We have failed to heed Paul’s warning to Timothy about the last days and the people who have a form of godliness but deny its power. “But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God- having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them.” [2 Tim 3:1-5]
Maybe it’s time to re-consider our “business model.”
