World of Vanity

Long ago, in the days of the prophet Jeremiah, there lived a group known as the Rechabites, a name derived from their leader, Jonadab son of Rechab. They lived as nomads, pitching their tents from place to place, never touching wine and not even cultivating their fields. The prophet Jeremiah praises them for the purity of their ways and declares that they will be spared from the calamity soon to befall Jerusalem. The descendants of Jonadab certainly kept the commandment give to them by their ancestor: yet his people have not listened to G-d, and did not when He called, and doing what He called them to do … there will always be a member of a family of Jonadab the son of Rechab before His presence. (Jer. 35:13-19)
Another communal group who flourished in the days of Y’Shua and John the Baptist, lived in splendid isolation along the western shore of the Dead Sea, they were known as the Essenes. They were the one ancient sect that accurately copied all the sacred scrolls.
The Hebrew have a community living called a kibbutz. Kibbutz means group in Hebrew. It is a modest name for something unique: a voluntary community where people live and work together on a non-competitive basis. Their living expenses and studies are financed by work. It is required that a serious and responsible attitude toward all work be maintained. No work is more or less important than any other; you are respected according to how you work as opposed to what you work at. All for one and one for all.
It takes a child – or a lost tribe from the days of Jeremiah – to know the difference. We live in a world of vanity. But Paradise cannot be found in the clothes we wear or do not wear, or the food we eat, or the fine wines we drink.
Desiring nothing, they had no cares, no worries, no anxieties. They understood implicitly that that the real problem in life is desire; whenever we want something, we are a little bit less than whole. Unexpectedly, it is in the learning to empty ourselves of desire that we really become full. As the biblical psalmist wrote in Ps. 23:1 ‘The L-rd is my shepherd; I shall not want.” How did we become a ‘I want, I want world’ the more the better? He has and will provide for us always.
US. society urges us to put on airs, to leak splendor and circumstance, pride and prestige. Possessions are often just status symbols, designed to distract people’s eyes from our native shallowness. Such things really amount to invisible, defiled clothing, worn to mask our nakedness.
We live in a world of vanity, the more we have the more stuff we have, the more time and energy we are likely to expend taking care of it. The most important and enduring values in life we often barter away simply to acquire more stuff. We have no need to display our wealth or position by the acquisition of one status symbol or another. There should not a struggle to build a bigger house, drive a sleeker car, or put together a bigger stock portfolio.  
Bankrupt is spreading rapidly, even Christians partaking in it. Part of being grown up is to learn to pay your bills. Living in ones means, not wants.   The Good Book says in Prov. 22:7 The rich ruled over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender. Be neither a loaner or a borrower, saves friendship, even among family members. Better if people learn to save for a rainy day, and manage their money wisely.