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REFLECTION

The theme for our reflection is “Being rich towards God” To be rich means “having a great deal of money or assets; wealthy.” To be rich towards God means acknowledging God as the source of wealth and success, glorifying Him with our wealth and success and being good stewards of earthly possessions and wealth. We shall deliberate on the fact that to be rich towards God we must value Him above all things and acknowledge Him as the creator and giver of wealth.

Beloved in the Lord, in everything we do as human beings, we must remember that we are beneficiaries of God’s grace and blessings. God is our benefactor; therefore, we must remember to value Him above everything and acknowledge Him as the Creator and giver of wealth. In the parable of the rich fool in Luke 12:12-21, we realise that after successfully harvesting his crops and making more wealth, the rich man failed to acknowledge God as the creator and giver of wealth and success. He said, “‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. 19 And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’ (Luke 12:18-19) Beloved in the Lord, we must value God the Creator above His creation. We must not become so materialistic and obsessed with wealth and success that we forget to glorify God or express our gratitude to Him as the source of wealth. When we fail to value and acknowledge God as the source of our wealth and success, we are in essence saying that we are the source of our wealth, hence we say to ourselves, “…take life easy, eat, drink and be merry…”.

The rich man’s failure to show reverence and appreciation to God incurred the wrath of God. “God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’ 21 “This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.” (Luke 12:20-21). My dear friend in the Christ we must acknowledge God for our success and wealth for “For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. (1 Timothy 6:7)

Beyond appreciation or recognizing God as the source of our wealth, one of the ways of being rich towards God is sharing or giving part of wealth or harvest with the poor and for the furtherance of the Gospel and the mission of God in the world. Paul’s admonishment to Timothy is worth our attention when he wrote, “Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. 18 Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. 19 In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life.” (1 Timothy 6:17-19)

In summary, we have discovered that to be rich towards God, we must value Him above all things and acknowledge Him as the Creator and Giver of wealth. Shalom.

PRAYER

May the Holy Spirit enable us to live a life of gratitude even as we put God first in all our endeavours, wealth and successes.