In this life, one of the primary priorities of humans is to become rich or stay rich. Becoming rich means becoming comfortable in this life, having a higher social status, and, most importantly, not being poor. Nobody wants to live a poor life. For this reason, people use all kinds of means to stay away from poverty, even if it means using illegal means. However, there is another kind of riches, true riches, and this comes from the kingdom of God Himself. Enduring riches and honour are with Him (Proverbs 8:18), and it is better than gold, even fine gold and His yield than choice silver (Proverbs 8:19). How then, can accessing the true riches in God’s kingdom be possible?
The difference between unrighteous mammon and God’s true riches
“If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches?”
Luke 16:11 KJV
From this verse, we understand that there are two kinds of riches: the unrighteous mammon and the true riches.
1.1 Unrighteous mammon
This is the kind of riches that has to do with physical wealth. The riches we gain here on earth through any means possible. It is very unstable and affected by a whole lot of things like depreciation, the world economy, taxes and so forth.
1.2 True riches
True riches, on the other hand, come from God. You cannot gain it on your own or by any means possible. Only God can give it to you. It is unperishable when the child of God has it. How does one gain these true riches? It is not gained but given only by the grace of God when one has faith (James 2:5) and handles money faithfully.
Be faithful in handling money
First of all, it has never been God’s will for his children to suffer poverty. His work is not done in poverty. You even need to pay taxes. However, it is also not God’s will that His children will get true wealth and ruin themselves with it. No. For this reason, He carefully watches how we spend our money, every single penny we get. And if you are faithful in the little you have been given, He uses that to elevate you.
Handling money faithfully means being transparent to God first in tithes and offerings. The second is being transparent to your spouse. Finally, being transparent to yourself. From the story of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5:1-6, we see that the husband was not transparent to God first. Then, he was unfaithful to Peter and was unfaithful to himself by actually promising to bring everything but later going against his own words. I had experienced this before when I actually lied to my accountability partner about the money I had received because I wanted some money on me. I ended up losing all the money and suffered. Dear friend, don’t do what I did. Be faithful in handling money, whether much or little, with no compromise.
In conclusion, God is ever ready to give us the wealth that endures and is better than the unrighteous mammon if we have faith in him that he is able to provide it, and we will accompany it by the works of faithfully handling what we have now. Amen.
