We need to stay focus on God and not materialism. So we need to act like we can live without things if need be. Don't make it your idol or do not act as if your life depends on it and you can really do without. Too often we impatiently seek our own way without any clear direction from God, sometimes even borrowing money to do His work. We forget that God says He will not frustrate His work for the lack of money ( Luke 22:35; “And he said unto them, When I sent you forth without purse, and wallet, and shoes, lacked ye anything? And they said, Nothing”). There is nothing wrong with asking God's direction, but it is wrong to go our own way without waiting for God's answer.
In order for us to recognize God's directives, it may be necessary first to understand God's view of money and how He uses it to enhance our relationship with Him. Money is neither good nor bad; it is merely a medium of exchange but the misuse and abuse of money causes problems. All we have is God’s and so it is God’s money. We are entrusted with money to do with it as God wills. With every transaction we make, we should be asking the question of whether or not the purchase is glorifying God. God uses money for our own good in strengthening our trust in Him. If we’ll trust God and accept our position as stewards and managers of His possessions, He will always bless us showing us that He is in control; Matthew 6:32’33 “For after all these things do the Gentiles seek; for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first his kingdom, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” Our lives revolve around making, spending, saving and using money; so if God can trust us with money then He can trust us with greater responsibilities and His true riches as we read in Luke 16:11 “If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true [riches]?” Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much as seen in verse 10 of the same chapter. Therefore, no matter what our financial circumstances, we can use money in a way that reflects God’s wisdom.
If we trust God He will show His love for us by giving us among others things money; Matthew 7:11 “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father who is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?” Not only is God concerned about the material well-being of Christians, he’s deeply and profoundly concerned for the material well-being of the whole world. God created a material world. He created man as a material creature with profound material needs. All we would have to do is go to the Sermon on the Mount to see Jesus’ great expression of compassion for those who are in material want. There’s a tremendous emphasis of concern in the New Testament that we as Christians have a profound care for those who are hungry, poor, naked, and homeless. That concern indicates a concern for the material welfare of people. The New Testament has a lot to say about wealth and poverty and the various causes and circumstances involving those conditions.
There are frightening warnings to the rich, for example, particularly those who would put their confidence in their wealth rather than in the benevolent concern of God. In this regard Jesus says, “Take no thought for tomorrow, what you should eat, what you should drink, what you should put on; but rather, consider the lilies of the field that they neither toil nor spin. Solomon in all his glory is not arrayed like one of these.” He is saying that we can become so preoccupied with the accumulation of wealth that we miss the kingdom of God; we have a concern for the material things to the neglect of the spiritual things. Because we see the world preoccupied with material things and woefully neglecting the spiritual, we may be inclined to become extremists in the opposite direction and say, “All that God cares about are spiritual things.” Again, a balanced view of Scripture will prevent us from coming to that conclusion, because there is nothing wrong with a concern for material welfare. In other words, God cares for people, and people are material creatures who require material things in order to survive. If God cares for people, obviously he cares for their material well-being. Health and healing from sickness are material matters, and so God’s concern for our health is a concern for our material wellbeing. We just have to be patient and wait for God’s time for God’s time is the best time.
Many Christians today lack patience so much so that we sort to get rich as fast as we can without waiting for God’s approval. When we taste little riches we abandon God, we forget that God wants us to help the poor and store our riches in heaven. Just as the rich man who obeyed the law but could not respond to Christ’s call to sell his possession and give to the poor, we are not ready to respond to God’s call. We want to select the commands which we want to respect; we are selective in God’s word instead of accepting all. We accept obnly those that are easy or convenient for us. The rich man could not sell his possessions to give to the poor hence he did not follow Christ (Mark 10:21).
We need to be ready to accept our conditions whether we are poor or not after all our Lord said sacred are the poor for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. We have to learn to persevere in our conditions and hold fast to God’s word because we have God’s promise and he never fails; Luke 6:20,21,24 “And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said, Blessed [are] ye poor: for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed [are] ye that hunger now: for ye shall be filled. Blessed [are] ye that weep now: for ye shall laugh. … But woe unto you that are rich! for ye have received your consolation. ” Following Christ entails renunciation of what we have whether it be riches, material possessions even ourselves; that is the sacrifice and it is it that shows great change in our life. We need to learn to live without those things in order to be Christians in all seasons (Luke 14:33, 18:25). We can only learn to live without these things if we understand that our life does not consist in possessions as our Lord teaches in Luke 12:15 “And he said unto them, Take heed, and keep yourselves from all covetousness: for a man`s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.” We need to learn that when we are entrusted with riches, it is because God wants us to do more in that direction and store in heaven by helping others on earth; Luke 12:33 “Sell that which ye have, and give alms; make for yourselves purses which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no thief draweth near, neither moth destroyeth.” We should have compassion on others; do to others what we will expect others to do to us. When we show compassion, and give to the needy, we are in another way showing the transformation that has happened in our lives. We need to be saved from the hands of materialism into a life of generosity and restore lives Luke 18:8,9 “And Zacchaeus stood, and said unto the Lord, Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have wrongfully exacted aught of any man, I restore fourfold. And Jesus said unto him, To-day is salvation come to this house, forasmuch as he also is a son of Abraham.” It is by being generous that we gain more. We need to invest in God’s vine yard rather than storing it up; rather we shall loose allif we do not invest it as stewards. The Poor widow in Luke 21:1 did not hesitate to say let me keep this for my food because I will have nothing for today. She gave all that she had because of her faith in God; and truly she did her saving in heaven and she will have her reward.
Our Lord himself is an example of the kind of life we need to live. He was patient and did not hurry for any material wealth; after all these things belong to Him but He taught us to leave as if we have no home on earth but in God’s kingdom (Luke 9:58). If we spend our time working for money and storing up for ourselves for the ‘rainy days’ as we usually say, while keeping God to the background, then we will lose both our life and the material. Who knows when He will die or the length of his life on earth? Luke 12:20’21 should inspire us; just as God said to the man who built big barns to store his possessions that he is a fool, we have to be wise and use our possessions as good stewards. We need to give up all that we have in order to have the kingdom of God. God’s purpose in our life is for us to glorify Him and for us to spend eternity with Him. God’s kingdom is our treasure and we should do all we can to have our crown in the Kingdom of heaven (Matthew 13:44). So we have to seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness as first priorities in our life, all other things will be added to us (Matthew 6:33).
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