RICHES AND SPIRITUALITY: A CALL TO FOCUS ON THE ETERNAL

Focus on the Eternal

If you are interested in yourself, it is strange that you are disinterested in the assurance of your destiny after this life. Why not focus also on the eternal? Steve Jobs discovered this on his deathbed. He reflected on how his millions couldn’t save him from the power of death. Alexander the Great also experienced spiritual emptiness at the end of his 32 years on earth. One of his orders for his own funeral was: “Keep my hands outside [the coffin] so that the world knows that the person who won the whole world had nothing in his hand while dying.”

Your Desire for Wealth is Not Wrong

Your desire to gain wealth is not biblically wrong. God wants us to live in a place “flowing with milk and honey.” The problem is “the love of money,” which is “a root of all sorts of evil” (1 Tim. 6:10).

Concerning the rich, the apostle Paul said, “Instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited or to fix their hope on the uncertainty of riches, but on God… so that they may take hold of that which is life indeed” (1 Tim. 6:17a, 19b).

Prominent people such as Martha, Mary, Lazarus, Matthew, Zaccheus, and Luke were part of our Lord’s “circle,” if it is proper to use that term. Rich people like Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus buried Jesus. I became a Christian because of an American-funded preacher. Let’s not be hypocrites. The Lord’s work to save souls needs financial support from those believers who have resources.

But We Need to Focus on the Eternal—Our Life After Death

The issue is that our focus must be on our life after death, not on wealth accumulation. I remember a preacher who said that focus means that if you chase that red chicken, chase it until you have caught it. Paul said, “I focus on this one thing.” (Phil. 3:13, NLT)

I like this rendering of 1 John 5:20 by GW Translation: “We know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding so that we know the real God. We are in the one who is real, his Son Jesus Christ. This Jesus Christ is the real God and eternal life.” That is our focus: “Jesus Christ is the real God and eternal life.”