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"Give
thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ
Jesus."
1
Thessalonians 5:18
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IT'S
ONLY MONEY
Money,
money, money / Must be funny / In the rich man's world
Money,
money, money / Always sunny / In the rich man's world
Aha-ahaaa
/ All the things I could do / If I had a little money
It's
a rich man's world
(Benny
Andersson & Bjorn Ulvaeus, © 1976 Union Songs AB)
Those
words are part of a song by the famous pop group ABBA. It was
first
recorded over thirty years ago but its subject is still a very volatile
topic these days. It's not only the current state of the economy
and
the battering it has recently taken, political or otherwise, but it's a
topic that hits even closer to home.
Plenty
of famiy arguments start over money. What's yours, mine, or
ours?
What kind of allowance should the children receive? What can we
save
for future needs or emergencies? Why is it that we always seem to
run
out of money before we run out of month? Is it really "a rich man's
world"?
The
Bible has a lot to say to both rich and poor. After all, becoming
a
Christian will not necessarily make us lose everything, nor will it
guarantee success in every venture. Throughout history there have
been
rich and poor Christians. But both rich and poor Christians have
discovered something about money. In fact they have discovered
the
same thing about it and have found that they both can be happy although
one may have a lot and the other a little.
Their
discovery? That money is very fragile. It is a weak and
undependable
thing, so much tied to the present and able to be rendered completely
worthless. On the surface this can sound like an ivory-tower
philosophy. We all pay lip service to this kind of thinking, but
no
one lights a hundred-dollar bill just to watch it burn. We don't
expect this concept to ever fade completely. Nor do we need to as
long
as the country is financially sound, the government holds up, etc.
But
this discovery is more than an understanding of economics. The
person
who can use money without selling his soul to it has discovered
something about life itself. He has discovered that many things
in
life are able to be enjoyed only for the moment. Cut a flower
from
your yard, take it into your house, put it in a vase, and enjoy its
beauty and fragrance. But in a few hours or days it will be
wilted and
gone. Don't cry over its passing. Don't adore it as
anything more
than it is: a pretty flower. Our lives are full of all
kinds of
things like that, but they are like cut flowers -- beautiful for the
moment and no more; wonderful to enjoy but not to live for.
The
valuable things of life are elsewhere. They are in having a goal
which
cannot wither or fade. Real riches are those permanent features
of
life which not even death can take away from us. They are
available to
us, not by way of the bank but by way of the cross, where our Lord
Jesus Christ, "though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor,
so that you through his poverty might become rich." (2 Corinthians 8:9)
Both
the rich and the poor know a lot about life. But the poor man
doesn't
need to curse God because he has no money. He may be short on
some
attractive possibilities, but not short of life itself. The rich
man
is overjoyed that he didn't fall into the trap of thinking that he had
everything, a kind of reasoning that would have deprived him of the
value of Christ's cross. God provides for both, giving us so many
things to enjoy. Thank him for these gifts. Ask his help in
using
them for what they are: temporary, and to never get lost in them
to
the exclusion of our real treasure of eternal life through Christ.
Pastor Kugler |
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