How To Be Rich Devotionalنموونە

Put Your Hope in God

What do you do in order to put your hope in God? What are the steps?

Look at what Paul says:

"Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share." (1 Timothy 6:18)

There you go. A step-by-step plan for keeping your hope from migrating away from God and toward wealth. If you think about it, adhering to that command would definitely have an impact on things. Imagine if every rich person were to live by that statement. It would be hard to be arrogant if you spent all your time thinking up things to do that were "good." And you couldn't "be rich in good deeds, and ... generous and willing to share" if you also put all your hope in the things you were so generously sharing.

I have a simple mantra that sums it all up. I like mantras because they summarize big ideas into little phrases that are easy to remember. So are you ready? Here it is:

"I will not trust in riches but in him who richly provides."

Go ahead. Say that out loud to yourself a couple of times. If you're sitting alone in a Starbucks, adjust your Bluetooth headset first and nobody will even know you're talking to yourself.

That one simple shift of your mindset holds the key to being good at being rich. Wealth has side effects. And the side effects that come with wealth are the very things that keep us from being good at it. Ironic, isn't it? The richer you get, the harder it gets to be good at it. But if we can address the temptation to trust in riches, "I will not trust in riches" and reinforce the idea of trusting in God instead, "but in him who richly provides," we will neutralize the side effects.

Sounds pretty simple. Just repeat that handy phrase to yourself a couple times a day and you're set - "I will not trust in riches but in him who richly provides."