Got Things, Get Things

What do you consider wealth? Is it the level of your lavishness, privilege, means, or possessions? Is your wealth found in how much power, prestige, or knowledge that you have now or are gathering? Is your wealth the time that you invest in your family, in their well-being, and the emotional security that they give to you as well? Or, is your wealth founded on the faithfulness and connectedness that you have gained from your friends which you have come to depend on over the years?

Living one's life all in an effort to gain material wealth is a very deeply held belief in our society. There are books, websites, seminars, Bible studies, preaching series, workshops, and the greatest teaching institutions of all the family and the school system, are key players in reinforcing the idea of gaining wealth as the main incentive to be educated and continue as a stable member of our society.

We're inundated with subtle, and not so subtle signs, all around us that point out being wealthy is better than not to be wealthy and that it's the greatest goal in life to achieve, with a good education as the way to ensure that you complete that goal. There is, however, another concept about wealth that should be considered.

Read Luke 12:13-21. It deals with the question of what wealth means to some by leading us through a parable that lifts up the difference between what Christ sees as wealth and what is thought of as wealth through the eyes of a man who asks him a rather pointed question regarding his inheritance. Wealth has a way of bringing out either the best or the worst in those who gain or receive it.

What has been your past history with wealth? How do you decide and prioritize what is considered wealth in your life? How does your accumulation of riches toward God rate in that decision?