Sermon on the Mount #26 Praying for Our Need-Not Our Greed

What is a need and what is a want? We have so blurred the meaning of words that many hardly know the difference between a necessity and a luxury. Whatever we want becomes a need we must have.
This is due to the self-indulgent culture in which we live where almost anything we want is found in a store nearby or can be ordered on-line. The poorest around the world that live in shacks and from day to day survive on the food they are able to gather would believe the poorest among us are wealthy; whereas we might think we are barely getting by with a roof over our heads, two cars, a smart phone/computer, and freezers, fridges, and shelves filled with food. It is a greater problem in our nation that people are dying from eating too much (and diseases that come from eating too much) rather than dying from eating too little.
It is not sin (in itself) to have and to enjoy God's material blessings which all come from Him. But we are accountable to God for how we obtain them and use them (1 Timothy 6:17-19). We cannot simply dismiss this passage as having nothing to do with us because we are not "rich". To be rich is simply relative to whom you compare yourself.
As we approach this Fourth Petition in the Lord's Prayer we must reorient our thinking from a want-based prayer to a need-based prayer, from praying for what is coveted for our indulgence to what is needed for God's glory.