To Encourage You

Luke 12:21 “Fool! . . . So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”

Often the Bible uses very strong language that is meant to rattle our chain and wake us up.  In the verse above Jesus says that some people are absolute fools. Do you realize that He said such things?  Could He be saying such things about you and me?!  How do we know?  

It’s actually not difficult – all we have to do is look at what He says.  He says that a fool is someone who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.  So, are we doing that?  It’s an “either-or” kind of thing. Someone who is laying up treasure for himself will not be a person who is rich toward God and vice versa.  So, we should ask ourselves, “What am I doing with my money?  What are my plans for it?  Is it my goal and my practice to be rich toward God?”  And then we simply need to look honestly at such things as our checkbook or our credit card statement and ask ourselves, “How is my money being used?”  

The Bible tells us that we are to care for our families with it.  It tells those who profess to be believers in God that “if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever” (1 Timothy 5:8).  Strong language – again around this topic of money.  But beyond that, beyond meeting our family’s basic needs, how are we using the rest – that which God has given us the freedom to use however we want to use it?  

One way people use “the rest” is for self-indulgence.  We can use money to bless ourselves, indulge ourselves, feed our every whim, i.e., we can lay it up for ourselves. On the other hand, we can direct our “treasure,” whether it be small or great, “toward God.” So what does that look like, exactly?  

One example is in providing financial help to those in need. Proverbs 19:17 puts it this way: “Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the Lord, and he will repay him for his deed.” So again, to that check book – have we been doing that?  Then there is giving to reach the world with the gospel.  That’s what we are doing as we give to various ministries or our local church if their focus is to do just that.  It’s one of the ways that we can “Honor the Lord with (our) wealth and with the firstfruits of all (our) produce” (Proverbs 3:9).  Similarly, the Lord has said that we should “Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house” (Malachi 3:10). And if we don’t? More shocking language: “Will man rob God? Yet you are robbing me. But you say, ‘How have we robbed you?’ In your tithes and contributions” (Malachi 3:8).  

Another wise use of our money is found in these words of Jesus from Luke 16:9: “I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.”  Here He’s encouraging us to bless others with our wealth. That’s what friends do.  But we should also share the gospel with our friends, i.e., those who have not yet met the Savior, so that someday, both we and they will share in the eternal treasure of heaven.  

But not only are we to be rich toward God in how we use the treasure He’s given us, but also in the way in which we actually give.  Jesus put it this way in the Sermon on the Mount: “When you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.  But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you” (Matthew 6:2-4). Insidious, isn’t it, how we can be “rich toward ourselves” even in the very act of giving “to God”?   

But then, even more sobering and shocking language is given to us by James when it comes to this topic of our “treasure.” Listen to his warning in James 5:1-3: “Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten.  Your gold and silver have corroded, and their corrosion will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure (for yourselves) in the last days.”  It’s strong language meant to wake us up right now and to keep us from waking up someday, after it is far too late, and realizing to our shock that we’ve lived our life as a fool.  

May God keep us from living as fools when it comes to the money He’s entrusted to us. May He help us to be wise enough to heed the words of Jesus Who told us, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:19-21). It’s all a word to the wise from the All-Wise to those who are wise enough to listen.