Deuteronomy chapter 8:
vs 17 And beware lest you say in your mind and heart, My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.
vs 18 But you shall earnestly remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you power to get wealth, that He may establish His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day.
THAT mankind likes money is no secret. That he likes to boast about how he got it, also well known.
Yes, there are successful businessmen who’ve worked hard and shown the skills and vision to make their business produce profit, and remained humble. That’s great.
But for the Israelites, their deal with God was a little different.
Moses had led them out of Egypt after years of back-breaking toil.
Then they were supposed to go across to Canaan, to inherit the land God had promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and their descendents.
However, they moaned, complained, doubted and were afraid of the giants dwelling there.
So, they ended up wandering around the desert for 40 years.
As this comes to an end, and they are finally due to get out of the desert, God sounds a warning.
He tells them about the land they’ll live in, how they’ll enjoy it, and grow wealthy.
He reminds them about how he humbled and disciplined them in the desert, so that they would know is was by His power that they survived.
And then he warns them about forgetting God and saying they became rich of their own accord.
It seems that God can use wealth to carry out His plans and purposes. However, what He was after here was the heart and minds of His people.
He wanted them to remember how it was He who had supplied their needs in difficult times.
If you jump across to the New Testament, Jesus warns the people that it’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.
What this means is that it is hard for a man who trusts in his riches, or in his own strength to make those riches, to do so.
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It’s pretty simple. Jesus cautions that unless you ‘become like a little child’ you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.
Again, the meaning is that one needs to remain humble, and remember that it is God who gives us the strength, wisdom and abilities to become rich.
If we believe we are all-powerful and self-sufficient, then we’ll run into a problem.
For example, Abraham was rich, as was Joseph, but they had a very clear understanding of Who had made it happen for them.
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