We need a certain amount of money in order to sustain our families or, if we are single, our own lives. Most people have to work to get that money. Fair enough.
But beyond that, our first priority should be to know God and especially to hear His voice.
I am convinced that many Christians are snared by the pursuit of wealth over the pursuit of righteousness and the knowledge of God.
I am sure that this has been true in my life also at times.
It is a very deceptive stratagem of the world and the devil.
If we gain wealth but cannot or do not hear from God as to how to use that wealth, how are we better off eternally?
To whom much is given, much will be required.
Jesus told us to preach the gospel to all creation. We can easily do it today by means of technology to a huge number of people.
Instead, the testimony of the church as a whole is that God is "not leading them" to do this.
So many are pursuing wealth. Its a never ending cycle. You get your investments to X dollars, but before you even reached 'X', you were dreaming of re-investing to get to '5X'.Once '5X' is reached, you might 'feel led' to give to some TAX-DEDUCTIBLE Christian charities (digging wells, doing micro finance, whatever) but you didn't 'feel led' to preach the gospel yet or finance that. Instead you wanted to "make bucket loads of money for the 'Kingdom' ", which means that the next few years of your life will be devoted to getting to '25X' and you will cry poor because all your funds are now tied up in 'illiquid' investments and you hardly have enough money to send your children to a good private Christian school and service your Mercedes properly and service the loans on the investment properties etc etc.
All this can go on and on until you either make a few bad investment decisions and lose it all, or you die and leave your wealth to your children.
Jesus talked about 'the deceitfulness of riches'.
I'm convinced that many people who start off with good intentions, desiring to 'make money for the Kingdom' end up in something like the scenario described above. Others try to make money for the Kingdom, but don't have sound business sense, and end up losing it all and getting themselves into debt.
Our first priority BEFORE riches should be to know God. WHAT IS GOD SAYING TO DO? I know there is a risk here of getting it wrong, and that can be VERY painful - BUT - to abandon the hope of really knowing God's mind is to give up much that is precious to us, or should be, as followers of Christ. What, are we going to follow Christ but have no hope of knowing what He desires for our lives?! May it never be.
If your heart is soft to God, if you know God, only then can you really be greatly pleasing to God. Of course, meditation on God's Word (and
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