Rich Toward God

The rich fool’s problem wasn’t that he was rich, or that he saved for the future, or that he died like everyone else. His problem was that his life revolved around himself, not God. As a result, he wrongly thought that he earned his riches, rather than receiving them as a gift of God’s grace. This led him to ignore other people, failing both to learn from their wisdom and to share God’s blessings with them. His life illustrates the Bible’s repeated warnings that the more wealth you have, the more spiritually mature you need to be. Whatever our net worth, Jesus calls all believers to be "rich toward God," a posture marked by grateful enjoyment, approachability, freedom from anxiety, and above all, confidence in the extravagant generosity of God. This posture produces habits of hospitality toward the needy, and aggressive, systematic generosity toward every effort to manifest the Kingdom of God.