Rich Towards God

[Edwin]

We all would love to be rich! Few of us succeed in being more than just comfortable. With food and raiment we are to be content. If we have enough clothes to put on, and we have enough food to eat every day we can be thankful to God for His blessings. All of us would love to have a little more. We would like to have enough so that we would not have to do so much figuring and scraping to get by in life, but for most of us we have to be careful what money we spend on what we want, so that we will have enough for what we need. In the age in which we live we think we need also communication and transportation. God wants us to have what we need, but we don't necessarily need to have all our wants fulfilled. If we work hard, and save we can have a few wants, and that is nice, but most importantly is to have what God wants us to have, and that is eternal life and peace with Him. The Bible speaks of the deceitfulness of riches. Riches don't do as much for us as we think they would. We all have to eat, drink, have clothing, communication, and transportation, and beyond that if God blesses us with riches, that is great, that we can serve God with our riches, but if not we can enjoy the life that God has allowed us to have. We want to be rich towards God, because we are only going to live a little while, and when we cross over to the other side we want God to reward us for being "Good and Faithful Servants!"

[angel]

i also want to be more more rich like others want too! but hey im contented for what i have now, im in good health, my families are good, we are having together, seeing each other and loving one another that would be a big blessing for me! with them in my side im contented now, eventhough sometime how i wish to be rich in an instant but you cant you have to strive more and work hard for it. unless you are lucky and win a lotto!

[angel]

Everyone needs provisions call it a salary, a home, presentable clothes, health insurance, etc. God knows we need these things while we live here on earth; in fact, He promised us that He would take care of all our needs if we seek His righteousness first (Luke 12:31). The Lord is not teaching us to shun working for a good living in this parable. From the parable we can see that the rich man’s every waking moment revolved around amassing wealth. It defined him as a person, and governed the way he planned his life. He even came to the conclusion that life was “good” because he was very rich. But he was wrong – the moment he died, all the wealth he had accumulated was given to someone else. His life’s work came to nothing, making him a fool in God’s eyes.We have to look at ourselves soberly, and identify those things that we treasure. Have these things become our standard, our reason for being? Could we live without them? Remember, you can’t take them with you when you leave this world.
Let us make sure that when we stand before the Lord, we do not bog down our relationship with Him by just talking about money, the way the man in the crowd was doing. He is telling us, “Watch out!” to make sure that our need for provision does not turn into a love for provision. Let us instead be rich toward God, treasuring our closeness to Him most of all.

[crisipicada]

Yesterday, I learn about the right perspective in serving the Lord. It speaks about what is your motive in serving the Lord and knowing who we serve. Sometimes, we need to search our hearts and minds, why we do such thing for the Lord. We must do things for His glory and now ours. For instance, being into different ministry, we need to see to it that our motive is for Him, to serve Him and to glorify Him. If we have wrong motive, we always easily get discourage. What a wonderful message and reminders for us.

[cheryz]

Rich toward God
Proverbs 27-28

INTRODUCTION:

On Resurrection Sunday our thoughts turn to heavenly themes. We can sing about Jesus reigning in heaven as the King of all Kings and the Lord of all Lords. The image of the Lamb upon the Throne pictures everything Jesus did for us. He gave his life as the sacrificial Lamb, then He rose again and ascended to Heaven.

Jesus Christ conquered death, not just for Himself, but for each and every one of us! On Easter Sunday, we remember His amazing promise, “Because I live you too shall live.” John 14:19

Thinking about Heavenly Themes is more than just a good thing for us to do on Easter. Focusing on Eternity is actually essential for every Christian. In fact, Jesus taught that it is foolish … even dangerous … not to think beyond our earthly life. Jesus made a radical statement in Luke 12 He said, "I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more. Luke 12:4

Don’t be afraid of someone who might kill you? That’s got to be easier said than done. But His death and resurrection gave these words clout! Jesus faced death head on … willingly. And then He rose again so that we would have no doubt. Death has been conquered. We no longer need to fear death.

But Jesus is not telling us we can breeze our way through life without a care in the world. Listen to His next words… I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him. Luke 12:5

In other words. Put your mind on eternity. Later, in Luke chapter 12, Jesus told a parable about someone who did NOT give any thought to eternity. Jesus told the Parable of the Rich Fool in response to a question:

Someone in the crowd said to him, "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me." Jesus replied, "Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?" Then he said to them, "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions." Luke 12:13-15

This man obviously assumed Jesus cared about money matters. But he was wrong. Jesus wasn’t about to get entangled in the messy squabble between two brothers. Jesus blasted through this smoke screen to show the real issue: GREED --- greed between two brothers who cared more for money than for each other. Then Jesus launched straight into a little story:

He told about a rich farmer who had a really good harvest one year. The farmer thought, Wow, this is great! I don’t even have room to store all this grain in my barns! What to do, what to do…. I know! I’ll build BIGGER barns! Then I can take life easy. I can eat, drink and be merry! Maybe I’ll take a Caribbean Cruise. Maybe I’ll buy a summerhouse in the Hamptons. Maybe I’ll…

Then God’s voice rudely interrupted his self-congratulations: God said to him, ’You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’ Luke 12:20

And in case they didn’t get the point, Jesus gave this clincher: This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God." Luke 12:21

What does it mean to be rich toward God? Well the parable made one thing clear. If you want to be rich toward God, you’re going

[angel]

Here’s the key concluding verse that makes the point most clearly (verse 21): “So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.” The phrase “rich toward God” is unusual. What does it mean to be “rich toward God”? The meaning is plain from the contrast: it is the opposite of laying up earthly treasure for yourself. Being rich toward God is the opposite of treating the self as though it were made for things and not for God. Being rich toward God is the opposite of acting as if life consists in the abundance of possessions not in the abundance of knowing God.

Being rich toward God therefore is the heart being drawn toward God as our riches. “Rich toward God” means moving toward God as our riches. “Rich toward God” means counting God greater riches than anything on the earth. “Rich toward God” means using earthly riches to show how much you value God. This is what the prosperous farmer failed to do. And the result was that he was a fool and lost his soul. That is what I meant when I said, Jesus considered money hazardous. It lures us out of love for God. It lures us away from treasuring God.

Again the issue isn’t that the man’s fields prospered. The issue is that God ceased to be his supreme treasure. If God had been his treasure what would he have done differently? Instead of saying, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry,” he would have said something like,

God, this is all yours. You have made my fields prosper. Show me how to express with my riches that you are my treasure, and the riches are not. I already have enough. I don’t need a bigger and bigger safety net. I don’t need better food, better drink, better parties. I do indeed want to make merry, but not in self-indulgent parties with rich retirees. I want to make merry with the people who have been helped by my generosity. I want the fullest blessing of giving. Because you taught me, Lord, it is "more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35).

[cheryz]

Practically speaking people are reaching towards God if they have problems or they want this in they life.. blah blah blah.. etc. For this we doing i know God is listening whatever we want but maybe there are reasons why some of what were asking for he never grant us, just wait for the right time i know he will give it to you. Just keep on believing, faith and pray.

[crisipicada]

I believe that it is a wake up call for us when we have problems in life. There are times that the Lord wants us to trust Him more than ourselves. We must remember that our self is one of our best enemy. We rather choose what is for our self than what the Lord's will is. At times like this we have an achor, Jesus Christ that we can count on.

At this moment of life, we must be honest and true to the Lord. We pray, "Lord, I cannot understand myself. I feel depress, I feel sad, I feel lonely. There is emptiness in my life. Please give me fulfillment and peace and love. I can do nothing about this situation. I want your best for my life. Help me to realize that having a close relationship with you is the most fulfilling life in this world. I ask, in Jesus name, Amen." Be blessed today. I love you all, members here in the forum.