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DAY 23–Frugality
I have given them your word. And the world hates them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. I’m not asking you to take them out of the world, but to keep them safe from the evil one. They do not belong to this world any more than I do. (John 14:14–16 NLT)
As followers of The Way and believers in Christ, we acknowledge that we are not part of this world in which we live. We belong to a Kingdom without borders or politicians, yet many of us spend countless hours striving after the temporary, whether they be pleasures or possessions. Instead, Jesus calls us to live for His Kingdom; this was His prayer the night before His crucifixion. Frugality, living simply, is an attempt to adopt an attitude to shape our souls. As with all other disciplines, it is not in the doing where we change, but our attitude combined with the doing allows the Holy Spirit to change us.
 
Examine your heart and your life to see what you can cut out in order to divert that time or money to further the Kingdom. It might be giving $5 to the homeless man on the corner instead of spending it on a caramel macchiato, or it could be moving to a cheaper cable plan to sponsor a missionary. Follow where the Spirit leads you; He is the vinedresser and will not prune that which is life-giving.
If we still think and convey by our behavior that in some way we are fundamentally different and better as persons from the man sleeping in the discarded boxes in the alley, we have not been brought with clear eyes to the foot of the cross, seeing our own neediness in the light of it.
—Dallas Willard
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