God does not hate money.
In fact, Christ stated the ‘love of money’ was the root of all evil, not
the money by itself. Greed then, or
avarice, is to be avoided – but not being rich.
What about the old adage He also spoke of in that “it is harder for a
camel to travel through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the
kingdom of God.” Again this is not a
condemnation of being rich, however it is quite an astute social commentary on
the feelings of affluence when it comes to recognizing our spiritual need. The biggest problem with rich people is their
ability to mask their true needs. Money
does not buy happiness, but it will sure try to rent it. When feelings of need emerge, a rich person
is able to mask them through new acquisitions.
New things can temporarily mask real need. It is not a permanent solution but as
Band-Aids go – sign me up, or no rather not, well maybe …
You see we all share a basic desire to have enough money to
survive, and beyond that, to be ‘comfortable’.
Most poor people will tell you that if they could just pay the bills,
put food on the table, and have a little left over, they would be happy. This is of course true. Except that as the money increases the bills
simply get bigger, the same horrific patterns of overspending continue just on
a bigger scale, and problems they faced while poor, are now only magnified by
excess. Of course the misery is somewhat
masked by the scale of their success, but the need to learn how to manage the
resources one already has access to, remains.
The other problem with rich people, is they have the means
to indulge in a much wider variety of temptations. Could a hard working man who picks fruit all
day long to try to feed his family, have an affair with another married woman –
you betcha. But what are the odds of his
finding himself in this condition compared to a rich man, who does not need to
work, is surrounded by beautiful women, who may be shallow and attracted to
wealth and power. Lets face it, rich
people tend to be prettier than poor.
They have access to plastic surgeons, and the best clothing, make-up and
hair artists. They tend to be more
educated. They live in better
neighborhoods and have access to better schools and better teachers. They tend to be more spoiled, as their
cuteness may have gotten them many breaks over the course of their lives. This is why rich people are stereotyped as
superficial, but beautiful people even more than rich. Are there exceptions, you betcha. But by and large these categorizations tend
to hold true. The fruit-picker may have
one affair, the rich playboy may have a hundred. They are equally guilty, but the rich man
faces temptation much more frequently than the poor.
Is this where the gospel of success would have us all
go? Should we all become so affluent we
forget our real spiritual needs, and find ourselves facing a world of
temptations? I know God wants us to be
comfortable, or does He? You see the
character changes you need to make in your life to lead you away from
self-inflicted pain of evil, may require you to acutely realize your need. You may need to face hunger, to see the need
to eat without excess. You may need to
juggle bills to see the value in paying Tithe despite the absolute knowledge
you do not have the money. You may need
to look closely at the one you love, to see the real value of that gift – so
that you do not discard it lightly in the pursuit of ‘different’. Everything that really matters does not
require money. You need money to
survive, but does too much of it cause decay?
I believe riches are a burden, placed on the shoulders of those who God
really wants to teach a lesson too.
Those that come to understand the value of imperfect living conditions,
and facing needs in their lives every night as they drift off to sleep – begin
to acutely appreciate the value of a God who solves their problems for
them. The rich face no such dilemma, so
learning to trust requires more from them.
The more tradition hell-fire and brimstone Christians have
it completely wrong as well. Heaven is
not a fire escape. You do not get there from
fear. You get there from simply
accepting the gift of salvation. The
saving part is not from a future burning, but from a present evil and
separation from God. The concept of
sacrifice on our part is completely misguided.
We do not ever give up anything of real value in our walk with God. Everything we discard along the way is trash
and baggage. Oh it may feel a bit
painful in the short term to part with something you like, but when you look
back on it, you realize it was something that only caused you pain. It is as if we cling to shards of glass,
holding them tightly while bleeding all over the place – this is what our sin
is like. But we don’t see the blood, we
ignore the pain, or blame it on something else, and cut ourselves ever
deeper. Then God comes along and asks us
to loosen our grip on our ‘favorite toy’.
We start listening, and as we accept His governance of our will, we let
go the glass. He carefully and tenderly
bandages the wounds we caused in ourselves, and takes the broken glass away
from us. As we heal, and as time passes,
we being to see our ‘toy’ for what it really was – a broken shard of
glass. With the benefit of hindsight we
cannot believe we ever thought that glass was ‘fun’. We see it now, in it’s real condition, and we
begin to realize what God has done for us in removing it from our lives. This is the nature of salvation. Where do you hear our sacrifice in this
process? What did we give up – only the
cause of our pain, nothing more.
It is not our sacrifice our God requires, it is our vision
to see what we are clinging to. It is
our trust in Him when our vision does not recognize the danger of our
‘toys’. What God wants is not our misery,
whether in abject poverty, or in extreme wealth, or simply in the danger zone
of comfort – He wants our eternal happiness, routed and grounded in the
principles of Heaven. Wherever you find
yourself, in whatever conditions you exist within, praise God. If you are poor, you are blessed. Your need will force you to rely on your God,
and in so doing, you will inherit the Kingdom of God. If you are rich, you are blessed. Guard against your acceptance of comfort, and
trust only in the hands of the invisible one – for He has entrusted much with
you, and will be teaching you much as a result.
If you are not poor, nor very rich, but find yourself comfortable – wake
up. Do not let your affluence mask your
real needs, be generous with your time and your money, and guard against the
distractions that would keep you busy and away from source of all love and joy.
If the gospel of success you listen to, does not ask you to
change, it does you a disservice. We
exist in a world of pain in which we must change ourselves to avoid. If the gospel of success you listen to tells
you God wants everyone to be rich, it does you a disservice. Few can handle the burden of riches, and
maintain any form of spirituality.
Success for Christians should be measured in the changes in character we
experience, and love we find reflected in our relationships. In this way, success is something God intends
for us all. This is the measure that
counts.
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