"The Folly of Riches" - Too

"He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver; nor he that loveth abundance with increase: this is also vanity." (Ecclesiastes 5:10 KJV)

  "Yet true godliness with contentment is itself great wealth. After all, we brought nothing with us when we came into the world, and we can't take anything with us when we leave it. So if we have enough food and clothing, let us be content." (1 Timothy 6:6-8 NLT)

 Without thinking too hard on this, it is easy just to understand what makes people become dependent upon their own abilities, while at the same time, depending less on God for their daily bread. To be clear, daily bread is not just food, because bread also represents God's word. When we practice providing for ourselves, making that the way we think things happen, then we also depend less on God's word, and more upon the world's way of gaining wealth.

 God's economy is not the same as the world's; as a matter of fact, it has a totally different reason to be wealthy, if a godly person was to become wealthy; everything we have really is not ours, it all belongs to God, and if the Lord says to give some or all of it away, then true wealth is gained by doing what He says, not by holding onto what we think is ours! Truth be told, if you don't give what is in your heart to give, then the enemy will take what you have not given, and more! 

 There is another side of this which some people don't realize is part of depending upon wealth and riches; these things become idols, which mean that you worship and serve them, instead of God! I became aware of this one fact, pretty much from the beginning of my new life in Christ: 'an idol is anything that we place between us and God.'

 The best way to determine if something is an idol or not, is to imagine how you would feel if it was gone. There are more and more homeless people I see walking around these city streets, thinking to myself, "But for the grace of God, there go I." Some of them are people that look as if they were once well off, and some look as if they shouldn't be homeless, at all. 

 I know someone else who was homeless; but He always knew He had a home...

"But people who long to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many foolish and harmful desires that plunge them into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. And some people craving money, have wandered from the true faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows." (1 Timothy 6:9-10 NLT)