Money Matters: Devotions from Time of Graceনমুনা

Making Money God’s Way: Blessed Are the Poor?

When you read the Gospels, it certainly seems that Jesus is pretty hard on wealthy people and is more kind to the poor. He said that it was easier to get a camel through the eye of a needle than to get a rich man into heaven. He even told a rich young man to give away all he had. Is poverty God’s preferred state of existence? Does money corrode our values so badly that we are best to get rid of it? Is the vow of poverty that monks and nuns take God’s ideal way of life?

Didn’t Jesus talk about poverty in one of the Beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount? Actually, yes. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3). But note that the poverty Jesus praises is not financial but spiritual. To be poor in spirit in this verse means to be humble, to be aware of our sinful need for a Savior, to be aware that without Jesus’ help our hands are empty in the Judge’s court.

You can have a hefty income and still be appropriately poor in spirit if your heart is humble and grateful before your God, if your greatest treasure is found in the gospel of Christ, and if pleasing God is the chief goal of your life.