Good Morning Everyone,
Our theme for this month: “Wisdom from Proverbs”
Our Bible verse for today: “Don’t wear yourself out to get rich; stop giving your attention to it. As soon as your eyes fly to it, it disappears, for it makes wings for itself and flies like an eagle to the sky.” Proverbs 23:4-5 (HCSB)
Our thought for today: “Money will not solve all your problems.”
I once heard a very wealthy man make this comment: “Anyone who thinks having lots of money would solve all their problems obviously doesn’t have lots of money or they would know better.”
Usually, having money is better than not having it, but just having money does not automatically make everything all better. Sometimes it makes things worse. There are plenty of examples of people using their wealth in bad and destructive ways and therefore they would have been better off if they never had it.
Money is just a tool that can be good or bad, a blessing or a curse, depending on how we use it. And interestingly, in the Bible God dedicates a sizable quantity of paper and ink to warning us against the potential dangers of money. Consider how often Solomon has raised the subject just in the Proverbs. Solomon of course, was the richest man in the world in his day. But if you want to read his summation of the true value of wealth (written at the end of his long life) just take a few moments to read the book of Ecclesiastes. He starts it off with “Meaningless, meaningless! Everything is meaningless!” And it goes downhill from there.
In multiple places in the Gospels, including in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus cautioned against becoming obsessed with acquiring money. In 1 Timothy 6:9-10 the Apostle Paul cautioned us that the love of money is the root of all evil. That statement is true to the point of being tragic. Just think about all the evil deeds committed in the world as a result of people desperately trying to get their hands on more money.
I write this on a Monday morning. For most of us it’s the beginning of the work week. It’s the old, “I owe, I owe, so off to work I go!” That’s ok; we should go to work so we can pay our own way through life. Additionally we should work well, getting promotions and raises, and we should make smart money decisions. Just don’t get obsessive about it. Don’t allow the pursuit of money to so dominate your thinking and your life that you lose sight of the things in life that are more important. Jesus said, “Watch out and be on guard against all greed because one’s life is not in the abundance of his possessions.” Luke 12:15
Money has the potential to be a blessing, but it will not solve all of our problems; and there are other things in life that are more important. So I encourage you to keep it in proper perspective.
God Bless,
Pastor Jim
Oak Hill Baptist Church 