MONEY: "God wants you to be rich!" Sound familiar? This is a major theme in many prosperity preaching churches. You won't find this teaching here, because we're convinced it completely misrepresents God. Attitudes about money is one of God's targeted areas in the human heart. "What have we learned?" you might ask. Just this: Many "Christians" who clearly love money are the first ones to deny this is where their hearts are at! It's ironic, because the way they live shouts a different message.
"It's not money that's evil. It's the LOVE of money that's evil," the rich retort. True, that is what the Bible says, but you define the "love of money" by what people do with it. There is a modern proverb that goes like this: "What a fool I'd be to let money keep me out of heaven!" The Rich Young Ruler was one such fool.
One of my favorite writings on wealth comes from Frank Laubach. In his Letters By a Modern Mystic (March 9, 1930), he wrote:
God is breaking through and I think the poor have less callousness for Him to overcome as a rule than have the rich. On the other hand the rich man has the wonderful opportunity of paying a sacrifice which will cut his heart almost out. If he seeks the place where his wealth is needed most, then throws all he has into that cause and then throws himself into the cause with his money, as Jesus asked the rich young ruler to do, his money will at that moment be transmuted into the golden threads of heaven. Maybe there is another way, but to me there seems only a blank wall for the wealthy men save through the doorway I have entered, a sacrifice that hurts and hurts and ~ behind Calvary, God!
This is straight Gospel. He who has ears let him hear.
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Putting Money in Perspective: Jesus defined Godly giving with perfect clarity when He pointed to the generous widow of Mark 12:41-44. The lesson is cyrstal clear: It's not how much a person gives, but how much a person gives in relationship to what they keep. This is a wonderful lesson in faith.
And He sat down opposite the treasury, and began observing how the people were putting money into the treasury; and many rich people were putting in large sums. A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which amount to a cent. Calling His disciples to Him, He said to them, "Truly I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the contributors to the treasury; for they all put in out of their surplus, but she, out of her poverty, put in all she owned, all she had to live on.
Wealthy people routinely soothe the conscience through "generous" donations, all the while living a life of luxury. This is "generosity" as defined by Sadducees (men who "loved money"). There are many warnings in the Bible about this. Some of the clearest are found in the Epistle of James:
Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries which are coming upon you. Your riches have rotted and your garments have become moth-eaten. Your gold and your silver have rusted; and their rust will be a witness against you and will consume your flesh like fire. It is in the last days that you have stored up your treasure!. . .You have lived luxuriously on the earth and led a life of wanton pleasure; you have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter.
There are many, many more passages in the New Testament that talk about money. We think Scripture is so clear on this subject that a child can learn it by simply reading the Bible one time. How about you?
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