How To Be Rich Devotionalنموونە

Money Does Things to People

The apostle Paul was a mentor to a younger man named Timothy. And in effect, he gave Timothy lessons on wealth. It wasn't because Timothy had a large estate. But as a young pastor, Timothy was in charge of preaching to people in places like Ephesus. By this time, many rich people had embraced Jesus and his teachings. Churches were popping up in many of the port cities that ringed the Mediterranean. Port cities were epicenters of trade and wealth. Paul, who had planted many of these churches, knew that rich people faced unique challenges as they adopted the new worldview introduced through Christianity. Just like today, the Christians of Paul's time were vulnerable to the dizzying effects of money. So he addressed some of their specific needs in a letter to his young protégé.

When I ran across this 1 Timothy 6:17, I thought what most people think: "I can skip this part, because I'm not rich." Rich is that other guy, that other family. But then I got to thinking. I've been to some places in the world where I was the rich guy. I've visited places where I felt very rich in this present world. In fact, during my research for on this topic, I discovered that if you make over $48,000 a year, you're in the top 1% of the wage earners in the world.

And you know what, money does things to people. People who are rich have tendencies and propensities that are unique to them. Those tendencies can be attributed directly to the presence of riches in their lives. The more a person possesses, the greater his potential to acquire a distorted sense of reality and the greater the odds that he will lose his sense of balance. So Paul instructs Timothy to do what he can to neutralize the effects of wealth on the wealthy.

Money makes us arrogant, and over time it becomes our primary source of hope, leaving us with the impression that we are self-sufficient. Wealth has its own gravitational pull. It will always draw those who have it in the direction of those two things. It is in this way that wealth eventually possesses its possessors. Cross a river, and the current will pull you in a downstream direction. Cross paths with wealth and you will be drawn in the direction of arrogance and the illusion of self-sufficiency. To survive the test of wealth, to be good at being rich, one must learn to compensate and resist its sinister force.