January 13 – Rich Toward God (Luke 12:13-21)

“I’ll say to myself, ‘You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”
(Luke 12:19)

IN WORD:
When we sit in God’s presence and seek His mind, His Spirit will convince us of the treasure we have in His name. Ephesians 1, one of the great chapters on what it means to be “in Christ,” tells us that we have “every spiritual blessing in Christ” (v.3) — redemption, forgiveness, knowledge, hope, the Holy Spirit, security, and an incorruptible inheritance. God has lavished such imperishable gifts on us. They cannot be taken away, they are immediately accessible, and they could not possibly be any greater. We are very much highly favored.
Yet, the problem from our present perspective is this: We don’t know how to access these precious gifts. We see our physical needs as much more urgent and our heavenly riches as much more distant. We’re happy about the salvation we’ve been given, but it won’t help us take that much-needed vacation today. We’re excited about the prospect of heaven, but it won’t pay the mortgage this month. We’re thrilled to be seated with Jesus by God’s throne, but that doesn’t secure the position we need to advance our career. Or does it?
It all depends on how we see our mortgages and careers. Are they tools for godly living? Or are they a means to secure our heaven now? Do we leverage the goods of this world for eternal purposes? Or do we spend them on our momentary satisfaction? Where are we really investing? Does our full portfolio major on spiritual realities? Have we learned that current investments can have everlasting returns? If so, our income and expenses are really very spiritual. They build God’s Kingdom!

IN DEED:
Materialism is deceptive. We are encouraged at every turn to live the high life, go for the gusto, grab life by the horns, and hang on to what we’ve got. We are obsessive about our upward mobility. Our problem is that we’ve forgotten how to define “upward.”
Know your citizenship is in heaven and invest in that. Take care of your physical needs and the needs of others, and then live in the Kingdom of God. It will forever pay dividends.

“A man there was, though some did count him mad; the more he cast away, the more he had.” -John Bunyan-