Thanks again

You bring up a great point about people lacking gratitude. I often say that this nation has gotten so fat over the last few decades that we now feel entitled to “the very best of life”! Understanding that our provision comes from God and it is our duty to seek His Kingdom and righteousness, would immediately destroy materialism in our lives.

Thank you for your insight!

A problem arises, however, when attempting to evaluate this in our own lives. It is much easier, it seems, to evaluate whether wealth is problematic for our neighbor than it is for ourselves and we believe the reason for this is that most people don’t consider themselves wealthy. It is always the other guy or gal who has too much money for their own good, isn’t it?

The reason many people don’t consider themselves wealthy is that they seemingly lack gratitude for what they have. They don’t exhibit appreciation for what they have by taking care of their possessions. Things came a bit too easy, perhaps, during the boom times. We flipped our houses, our cars, our girl friends, our spouses, and our stocks as easily as we flipped our disposable razors into the trash can and, as a result, the trash can is basically where our economy and many marriages ended up as well.

If we are grateful for what we have and understand the nature and source of our abundance, there is no amount of money or increase to our wealth that becomes problematic. If, on the other hand, we lack gratitude for what we have, having a bank balance of 1 dollar or 1 million dollars, or any amount in between, becomes problematic.

So, it is not the size of our bank balance that is the determining factor of whether wealth has become problematic, but rather how much gratitude we have or don’t have for those things, however small or great, that we’ve been blessed with.

These verses – along with a myriad of others – make it clear that wealth does nothing to gain favor in the sight of God, and even the “favor” that we gain with men is short-lived. Our goals and plans in life should not revolve around money or prosperity.

God is no respecter of persons, and He is not impressed by our wealth at all (since it is His anyway). Even men are fickle with the respect wealth can buy. It seems that one never has enough to keep paying the price for this respect.

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