@ Etude- Our Attitude towards Wealth

UV 3277/10000 @ Etude- Our Attitude towards Wealth

that I would not take anything that is yours, from a thread to a sandal strip, so that you could not say, " I the King of Sodom have made Abram rich."


Genesis 14 v23


The Lord had blessed Abraham with much wealth and he was contented with whatever the Lord had given him. Abram was not interested in ill gotten wealth. He did not want to take anything from the spoils that his band of men had taken from the chiefs on the other side of Jordan. When the king of Sodom made a generous gesture of offering him whatever they had taken, Abram refused stating as above. It indicated that Abraham was a man of principle. He was not greedy. He did not want to feel obliged to the king of Sodom in any way and did not want the glory or credit of the material blessings he enjoyed to be taken away from the Lord by other men.


The Word of God does not speak against the possession of wealth by human beings. It only says, "When God makes a man wealthy, He adds no sorrow to it." The relentless pursuit of wealth by humans down the ages had brought much sorrow, tragedy and pain on them. It did not provide them the happiness that they thought it would bring them. Instead, if we trust the Lord, work diligently and with persistence and faith, the Lord will bring us into rich desserts in due time. We should possess wealth without being possessed by it. We should acknowledge at all times that we owe it all to the Lord for what have we except what the Lord has endowed us with. He endows us with the skills, abilities, talents from within and bestows us with the opportunities, resources and ideas from above and without. He also gives us the grace and length of life to enjoy what we have earned.

Our sufficiency is of the Lord and we are not unduly distressed with little or unduly proud, arrogant or boastful with plenty. As Paul writes, " We are able to live in plenty or with little." Wealth is not our source of strength but the joy of the Lord is our strength. The awareness, the certain knowledge that the Lord is with us and that He will not forsake us or leave us is what keeps us going and going strong. As for material blessings He sends our way, we by no means refuse it but we should display a stubborn refusal for ill gotten gains that tend to fly away as easily as it is gained. We also recognize that wealth is not meant only for our personal enjoyment but to bless others in their hour of need. Abraham gave a tenth of the gains of war to Melchizedek, king of Righteousness- a precursor of Jesus. He also allowed the servants to keep their share of it. It implies that we need to reward those who labour for it adequately and give to the Lord our tithes and offerings.