Threats to Humility: Riches and Wealth

Our possessions and positions in life are from God; we can’t take credit for them.

Many today take pride in their economic status. They boast about their riches and trust their money, thinking they must be great for acquiring all they have. But remember what Moses said to the Israelites before they entered the Promised Land: “You may say in your heart, ‘My power and the strength of my hand made me this wealth.’ But you shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He who is giving you power to make wealth” (Deut. 8:1718). Everything you have, God gave to you. Don’t parade your possessions as if you obtained them through your self-created abilities.

A related area is pride in one’s class, which involves looking down on those in “lower” levels of society. Such people don’t want lower-class people in their neighborhoods and certainly wouldn’t invite them to dinner. If you are guilty of this sort of pride, keep in mind that God loves poor people. Jesus Himself was poor in this world and spent most of His time ministering to the poor.

Sometimes in moving up the social ladder, people may demand a certain kind of treatment. They expect the best of everything and get offended when they don’t receive it. One of the things Jesus criticized the scribes and Pharisees for was this: “They love the place of honor at banquets, and the chief seats in the synagogues, and respectful greetings in the market places, and being called by men, Rabbi” (Matt. 23:6-7). Resist the temptation to seek worldly honor, glamour, and privileges.

Advertisers today continually entice us to draw attention to ourselves by what we wear. But undue attention to appearance can make people haughty, boastful, and indulgent, trying to show themselves as better than others. God hates that sin (Isa. 3:16-26).

John said, “Do not love the world, nor the things in the world. . . . The world is passing away, and also its lusts” (1 John 2:15, 17). Don’t let the world tell you what you should seek or value. Remember instead that “the one who does the will of God abides forever” (v. 17).

Ask the Lord to give you contentment with your present status and to help you reach out to those not so blessed.

Read Luke 14:8-10; 1 Timothy 2:9-10; and James 2:2-8 and see if you are guilty of materialism or social pride.

Something that I think turns off EVERYONE is the flashy and ostentatious so-called evangelist(s). I'll never forget seeing Paula and Randy White driving around Tampa in their $250,000 Bentley and their justification for living in a huge mansion. It's like they never heard about Jesus telling His disciples to NOT care about worldly wealth but to trust in God to provide all their needs - not their greeds.

Nobody cares that much, it seems, about people who earn their wealth and have nice things, but when it's a "man/woman of God", there's a tendency to criticize and presume they're only conning others to give them money. It's certainly nothing new. They are as Paul warned Timothy:

Their minds are corrupt, and they have turned their backs on the truth. To them, a show of godliness is just a way to become wealthy. (I Timothy 6:5)

There certainly is a place for wealthy Christians as God uses them to support many charitable causes and missions. But the difference is when the ministers being supported by the wealthy AND poor alike use money to indulge themselves in worldly goods rather than towards the support of the work of God to reach the lost for Christ. Feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, sheltering the homeless, etc., are the many ways donations can benefit the cause of Christ and which brings Him honor, glory and praise. Being flashy and prideful doesn't.

I know for a FACT that you can't out-give God. I know what it's like to have little (nothing) and what it is to have plenty - and I'd give away everything I owned if He wanted me to. I've learned that in whatever state I am in to be content. I trust Him.

Agreed.

And you can see them conning people out of money with garbage like *seed money*, where they promise that if you give x, then God will send you 100x back.

I know people who have been been duped that way and they were genuinely puzzled as to why they never got their 100x as promised. It didn’t seem to occur to them that they were lied to for financial gain.

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