Wealth Warning
By David Reay
A LifeWords Devotion
“Don’t
be surprised if you see a poor person being oppressed by the powerful and if
justice is being miscarried throughout the land.
“For
every official is under orders from higher up, and matters of justice get lost
in red tape and bureaucracy. Even the king milks the land for his own profit.
“Those
who love money will never have enough. How meaningless to think that wealth
brings true happiness! The more you have, the more people come to help you
spend it. So what good is wealth—except perhaps to watch it slip through your
fingers! Ecclesiastes 5:8-11 (NLT)
It has been reported that those who have windfall wins in
lotteries or the like often end up wasting that wealth.
It
doesn’t give them the happiness and security they figured it might.
Little
wonder the Bible is full of warnings about accumulating material wealth. It
does not live up to its promises.
Not
that there is any glory in material deprivation.
Not
that wealth in itself is morally wrong.
We can
do a lot of good with a lot of money.
But the
greedy desire to be rich ends up making us selfish and neglecting those in
need.
Aspiring
to get more in order to be more generous is a good thing, but so many want to
get more simply to please themselves.
The
love of money corrupts. It leads to injustice as our text reminds us.
It
never satisfies because those who are so greedy can never say ‘enough’.
Greedily
acquiring wealth reveals a deep insecurity within us, and a carelessness
towards the needs of others.
Ultimately,
as the old saying goes, you can’t take it with you.
So, we
neither despise wealth out of some glorified and erroneous concept of poverty,
nor embrace it as a way of satisfying our deepest ego needs.
We ask
God to help us be generous and assume he will give us the means to do so.
Blessings
David
In
today's world real hope is hard to find. That's why Hope 103.2 exists:
to bring the message of hope to our community through a family-friendly, safe
listening environment.
We
won't be quick to criticise or condemn. And we won't play on people's fears.
Hope 103.2 will be ready to celebrate what's good in society and culture.
https://hope1032.com.au/stories/faith/2019/wealth-warning-a-lifewords-devotion/
The Vanity of Wealth and Honor
8 If you see in a
province the oppression of the poor and the violation of justice and
righteousness, do not be amazed at the matter, for the high official
is watched by a higher, and there are yet higher ones over them. 9 But this is gain
for a land in every way: a king committed to cultivated fields.[a]
10 He who loves
money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his
income; this also is vanity. 11 When goods
increase, they increase who eat them, and what advantage has their owner but to
see them with his eyes?
Footnotes
a.
Ecclesiastes 5:9 The
meaning of the Hebrew verse is uncertain
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ecclesiastes+5%3A8-11&version=ESV
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