While being a wise steward of what God’s entrusted to us is a virtue, increased wealth isn’t a sign of God’s blessing. It’s possible that we’re putting our identity in the wrong place, finding our value in what moths will destroy than in the One who provides for our every need.
At the beginning of 2022, my church began studying the book of James. This book is so helpful and practical in many ways. But one of the ways that it helps me personally is helping me to see when I’m focused on the wrong things.
Or maybe a better way to say it is, when I’m focused on what won’t last.
The Perennial Issue
James 1:9-11
introduces a perennial issue: our relationship with wealth. More specifically, it challenges the all-too-frequent assumption in a western society that wealth equates blessing or value. But James flips this assumption entirely, writing:
9 Let the brother of humble circumstances boast in his exaltation, 10 but let the rich boast in his humiliation because he will pass away like a flower of the field. 11 For the sun rises and, together with the scorching wind, dries up the grass; its flower falls off, and its beautiful appearance perishes. In the same way, the rich person will wither away while pursuing his activities.
The poor, he says, have cause to boast—to be proud in a godly sense, because they have a special place in God’s kingdom. They know that all they have is from God. They don’t hear the words of Jesus’s example of how to pray, saying “Give us today our daily bread,” as a truism (Matt. 6:11). It’s a way of life. Every day, every moment, is lived by faith. This is the faith of the majority church, not just throughout history, in places like Ethiopia, in Nicaragua, in Haiti, Honduras, El Salvador, China and dozens of other nations, it’s what faith looks like right now.
It’s the kind of faith that looks at their circumstances as an opportunity to boast in God, in His provision; glorifying Him with great joy in all things.
But to our cultural ears, that is strange.
When We’re Focused on What Won’t Last
In our society, the wealthy are exalted. They are our cultural icons whether they became wealthy through their ingenuity, abilities, or good old-fashioned dumb luck.
Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson, Elon Musk… While all have different stories of gaining wealth, they’re all primarily known to us today for one reason only:
They’re weird rich guys who built themselves spaceships.
But we still esteem them. We still exalt them. And, let’s be honest, if you were as insanely wealthy as them, you’d probably build yourself a spaceship, too.