Financial Discipleship – the Bible on Riches & WealthSample

In Luke 18:25, Jesus says it’s easier for a camel to enter the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter God’s Kingdom. Many Bible scholars say that in Jerusalem, there was a small gate into the city surrounded by a wall. And a camel would have to walk on its knees to get through it.

So, Jesus says that is an easier task than a rich person getting into Heaven. Not because of being rich. But because the love of being rich takes ownership and distracts the heart from loving God.

Many iconic figures in the Bible loved God first and still inherited plenty during their time on earth. Abraham (Genesis 24:35), David (1 Chronicles 29:28), Solomon (1 Kings 3:11-13), and Jacob (Genesis 30:43). God has blessed all of them with earthly wealth and possessions because they obeyed Him and loved Him first.

They weren’t perfect. But they loved God first. And He gave them wealth.

It’s not His desire for any of us to live in want. First, have a heart that seeks and trusts Him, not money. And if it is His will for you, He will give you abundance.

Second, have a giving spirit that doesn’t wait for your heart to be content before giving to those who ask of you. And He will give you back more, pressed down, shaken together, overflowing so much, that you don’t know how to contain it (Luke 6:38).

He didn’t promise that the road would be easy. He didn’t say that our lives would be painless or without want. But He did say in His House, there’s a place for us. All that is there is ours, if we just love Him and serve Him. Everything we could ever need. Everything we could ever want—and more—is there.

Maybe being rich gives us access to perks that others could never get. Maybe riches make others want to respect us. Maybe being rich draws many friends toward us (Proverbs 14:20; 19:4). And maybe our riches do a lot of the speaking for us. But no one on this earth can give us access, proclaim our rights, or speak for us when it comes to the Kingdom.

There’s no such thing as “having it all” here on earth. The true riches, that neither moth nor rust can destroy, lie in Heaven (Matthew 6:20). Don’t let another day go by laying up treasures for yourself in the wrong place.

(excerpt taken from The Bible on Money, Compass-finances God's way, 2022)