Thursday, September 11, 2008
Job 1:21 And he said: "Naked I came from my mother's womb, And naked shall I return there. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; Blessed be the name of the LORD."
PERSPECTIVE: A VIEW OF WEALTH
Perspective has a lot to do with the value of money. Money has value only because we give value to it. I will never forget an incident in a book by Ayn Rand -- one character comes with millions of dollars to a small place in the Rocky Mountains and is told that all of it, every last penny of the fortune she owned, was worth exactly nothing. She could not even buy a loaf of bread or tube of toothpaste with every last dollar she had. What a thing to be told that millions of American dollars are absolutely worthless! Yet this is exactly what God's perspective is on money and all earthly things.
Job understood this. He saw things from the Lord's perspective. He knew his wealth had nothing to do with the amount of material things he owned -- not gold, not silver, not money, none of it had any value to him because he was looking from God's perspective. Matthew 6:20: "But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven . . ." God reminds us that there is a far greater wealth and far more lasting wealth waiting for us at the journey's end, so why are we so consumed with the riches of this earth? Why do we care so much about gaining what we cannot keep when that which will last forever awaits us in that life to come? Like our view on time, a godly view of wealth will have a great impact on our daily lives. It will change what sort of goals we present to our children, what jobs we set before them as most important, even what type of person we choose as our spouse. And it will cause us to throw ourselves into the work of building up the kingdom of God gladly and eagerly instead of building up our kingdom in this earth.
Change Your Perspective: View the Riches of His Kingdom.
