"As for every man to whom God has given riches and wealth, and given him power to eat of it, to receive his heritage and rejoice in his labor--this is the gift of God." Ecclesiastes 5:19
Sounds pretty good doesn’t it? Money... a gift from God? Now, that’s my kind of gift!
According to God's Word, money can't satisfy us, and it can hurt us. Money can be the root of many bad and corrupting things in our lives. 1 Timothy 6:10 says... For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. But there's another side to wealth. Solomon, the wealthiest man of his day, tells us that riches also can be seen as a gift from God. In fact, it's only how we sometimes misuse the wealth God gives us that brings a negative connotation to money. God is not against money; He is, however, against greed and other uses of money that distort and corrupt our life balance.
Seventeen of the Lord's parables have to do with property and stewardship. Clearly, this was an important subject to Jesus. The problem is we have a skewed understanding of what wealth is. A typical dictionary defines wealth as "A large aggregate of real and personal property, an abundance of those material or worldly things that men desire to possess." That definition catches the spirit and greed of our times perfectly.
Real wealth is a lot more than just money. Wealth is the sum total of all that God has given us. Genesis 13 makes it apparent in Abraham's day that wealth was defined by the number of cattle or the number of camels a person owned. Later on, wealth was determined by the amount of land that an individual owned (Joshua 17). In our society, possessions of all types determine wealth. Your computers, automobiles, sport utility vehicles, stock market holdings, money market funds and all the other stuff you own constitute your wealth. But that's the definition of wealth in the mind of a flawed society. It doesn't take into account everything God has done. If we want to understand the truth about wealth, we need to consider other factors to get a true understanding.
One of the greatest displays of personal wealth in recorded history is that of King David of Israel in preparation for building the first temple in Jerusalem. Out of his own personal wealth, David gave 3,000 talents of gold and seven thousand talents of silver—an amount worth about $5.9 billion in today's dollars. The leaders of Israel contributed several times more.
What do you think the first words from David's mouth were after these billions of dollars of commodities were collected? "Blessed are You, Lord God of Israel, our Father, forever and ever" (1 Chronicles 29:10). The first thing David did was "praise God from whom all blessings flow" (to use the words of the modern Doxology).
David knew everything they had given to build the temple had come from God and they were giving back to God only what God had previously given to them. A lack of praise in times of prosperity may mean we are confused about the source of our blessings.
Like ancient Israel’s King David, when we understand wealth as a gift of God, that it comes from God, that he allows it to exist and circulate among humanity, then we properly understand that all wealth belongs to God. We humans are nothing more than stewards of what rightfully belongs to God.
This is a very difficult attitude for the world and many Christians, to accept. But the Bible makes it clear that God created everything, God sustains everything and God owns everything. Psalm 104:24 declares, "The earth is full of Your possessions." In 1 Chronicles 29:11 we read, "Yours, O LORD, is the greatness, the power and the glory, the victory and the majesty; for all that is in heaven and in earth is Yours." Haggai 2:8 reminds us, "'The silver is Mine, and the gold is Mine,' says the LORD of Hosts." Everything in the ground, everything above the ground, everything in the air, everything that passes through the air ultimately belongs to God. He owns the cattle on a thousand hills, the wealth of every generation, the wealth of every nation that has ever existed.
When we believe that wealth belongs to us, we get ourselves in trouble. We say, "It's mine, I earned it, I worked hard for it. It belongs to me, and I'll do with it whatever I want." If that's your attitude, you have been duped by Satan in a big way. Satan wants us to believe that everything we have belongs to us and we are not responsible to anyone for how we use it. But the truth is it's not ours; it's God's. Wealth is a stewardship from God. We are just holding God's wealth for Him, using what we need of it to live on, and investing the rest so that it will bring a greater yield to Him (Matthew 25:14-30). God wants to see what we'll do with it. So whether it's money, land or possessions, we will never be rightly related to what we have until we recognize that it is not ours. All that we have belongs to God.
Consider these questions: Are you spending all your time trying to save your wealth? Are you constantly seeking to find new and better ways to have bigger and better things? If you think like that, then take this wisdom to heart, and it will keep you from personal ruin. Don't treat what money you have, whether it's a little or a lot, as your own. Treat it as God's and it won't buy things you don't need. Treat the wealth you have as God's, and it won't rule your life. If you treat it as God's, you'll discover that it will go a lot further than it does now.
Everything you have is God's gift to you. What you do with everything God gives you is your gift to Him. Is your life all about getting or all about giving?
If you have more than you need today, give thanks to God for your prosperity... then share it with those in need. (James 1:27)
