How Much Is Enough?

“And He said unto His disciples, Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat; neither for the body, what ye shall put on.  The life is more than meat, and the body is more than raiment.”  Luke 12:22-23

A man complained to Jesus because he wanted Jesus to force the man’s brother to share an inheritance with him.  Jesus let him know that wasn’t His job to settle family disputes especially about money. A dispute about money would indicate that there was some greed involved, and Jesus taught against being greedy.  He then cautioned the man not to be deceived by the idea that wealth and abundance would be the answer to all of his problems.  Matter of fact, real life is not about what you have.  It’s about Who has you.  There is a radio personality that is on air early on Sunday mornings who gives financial advice.  He always ends his program with, “Remember, your life is more than money.”  It’s too bad the man in the following account didn’t listen to the radio on Sunday morning and realize a very important principle of life before it was too late.

Jesus began to relate this story to His disciples about a certain rich man whose fields produced an abundance of crops.  Rather than sharing his extra with the poor and needy, he decided to horde it.  However, his barns weren’t big enough to hold all of his crops so he decided to build bigger barns to store his abundance.  Since he had so much, he figured he wouldn’t have to work for the next few years.  He decided that he would “party down” and have a good time never considering that he had no assurance of seeing the sunrise again.  During the night, he passed away.  All that he had horded ended up in someone else’s barn.

When Jesus said to take no thought about our lives, our food, and our clothes, He didn’t mean to abandon our responsibilities for daily living and caring for our families.  He cautioned us not to make amassing wealth a priority over faith, love, and worship.  When we put God first, then everything else will fall in its proper place.  For the skeptics, life on this earth as we know it will never be perfect.  God will provide those things that we need, but He does expect us to put forth an honest effort to care for our families.  That’s why He gave us skills, intelligence, and a desire to contribute.  There is talk going around in political circles about just giving money to people for nothing, that is, to those who don’t want to work.  That is so against what God’s word teaches, I should probably save that subject for another day.

Like the fellow on the radio says, “Remember, your life is more than money, so much more.”