In the past, I’ve had difficulty knowing what to spend, what to save, or what to give away. Basically, I’m a spender, not a saver.

Years ago, we were involved with a building campaign for a church. Some couple got up in the service and told everyone they were going to give $20,000 to the church over the next 2–3 years. I was crushed—I was only making about $14,000 a year working as a teacher. Just the year before we were on food stamps. And I know some of you can relate to this feeling of inadequacy.

Last weekend, Roger related scripture to us, which helped us focus on one truth: We are stewards of God’s wealth. God owns it all and we are His tenants. We have been blessed with the ability and creativity to manage God’s world.

Part of that responsibility is to acquire things in our lives so that we can live and provide for others. We purchase houses, beds, linens, tables, chairs, plates, cars, pants, shoes, shirts, all the things we need in life! Spare tires, sweepers, TVs, Cubs jackets, DVDs, CDs, Cardinals caps, golf clubs, soccer balls, and guitars!

I got to looking at all the CDs I have—over 300 music CDs. It would take me over 10 straight 24-hour days to listen to all that music! I won’t even try to estimate how long it would take to get through our library of over 1,000 books! When is enough enough?

Here’s what a man named Burkett wrote about it:

Indulgence, impulse buying, and get-rich-quick schemes all have the same root cause: greed. Most of us don’t like to hear that, because we’re prone to at least one of those problems. In reality, they are just different levels of the same basic problem (i.e., greed).

Here’s what another fellow named Foster wrote:

…Our need for security has led us into an insane attachment to things…. We crave things we neither need nor enjoy…. We are made to feel ashamed to wear clothes or drive cars until they are worn out. The mass media have convinced us that to be out of step with fashion is to be out of step with reality. It is time we awaken to the fact that conformity to a sick society is to be sick ourselves. (written in 1978!).

In one of the biographies about Jesus, Luke records an account of someone who could not get enough. Jesus is teaching about how not to worry, when he gets interrupted. Luke 12:13–14 says, "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 (all)?’"

I thought Jesus was a caring kind of guy! His response appears to be kind of harsh, don’t you think? One thing you have to do when you study the Bible is to look for what is there in the text and what is not there. As you look at the context, Jesus is teaching a crowd of people. Suddenly, someone interrupts Jesus’ teaching.

We have to ask ourselves, "What’s the hurry? Why the interruption?" Commentaries tell us that this may have been a situation like this: a younger man was being slighted by an older brother who had received the inheritance. Or it could have been a situation where the requestor of the money wanted it early so that he could do his own investments or whatever. Either way, he doesn’t ask for arbitration; he is asking for judgment.

In those days, judges and ordained rabbis would decide on civil matters like this. There is no indication, however, that Jesus was an ordained rabbi; nevertheless, He must have understood something about this man’s situation. To us, the request seems "fair"; however, in the man’s request, Jesus reads an attempt to covet, to have more. Jesus’ turns this interruption into another teaching lesson: The Fallacy of Greed. Luke 12:15 says, "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.’"

In almost every society, past and present, humans have found their identity in the things they own. In some of the Northwest Indians tribes, when one person visited another on a special occasion, they were showered with gifts. When the favor was returned, the amount of gifts would have to increase. After several visits, some of these families were broke. They had nothing more to give and were seen at that point as failures.

I get the idea, especially in the Old Testament, that a man with much money was seen as being more blessed by God. However, Jesus puts that age-old idea to rest. He basically says, "He who dies with the most toys does not win! There just may be something missing in this I-Me-My Mentality.

Luke 12:16–19 says, "And he told them this parable: ‘The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. He thought to himself, "What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops." Then he said, "This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I’ll say to myself, ‘You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.’"

Now is the businessman in the parable really doing anything wrong (other than telling a white lie; he had a place for his crops, just not the extra ones)? Isn’t he just trying to be responsible and grow his company? Sounds like he’s got a good plan for retirement!

You have to ask yourself, "What do I see there in the text?" Here’s what you might see: "I will do this and that with my crops, my barns, my grain, my goods"—the I-me-my mentality. He is apparently setting all his future hopes in his ability to fill out a good portfolio. His 401k and IRAs and expanding property and bank accounts are going to provide him with a cushy retirement.

Actually, it sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? The Bible supports the idea of acquiring wealth (usually for reasons other than feeding our own insecurities), but the differing factor is seeking God’s will. We should be putting our trust in God to provide for us (see, for example, James 4:13-15).

In the days of the Crusades, sometimes knights were baptized before they went on the long trip to the Holy Land. However, since they were on their way to kill Muslims, some of them would draw their sword before being baptized, and they would hold the sword above their heads as they lowered themselves in the water. Why? They wanted to maintain control over their sword! They wanted to have free reign!

Likewise, I have lived a life where I held my money out of the water so it would not be baptized, so to speak, not fall under the control of God. I wanted to hold onto the power of the penny.

Alcorn tells a brief story about Sam Houston, the colorful soldier and politician from Texas who became a Christian later in life. "After his baptism, Houston said he wanted to pay half the local minister’s salary. When someone asked him why, he responded. ‘My pocketbook was baptized, too."

Now back to this story: since Jesus is hammering this guy, we also have to ask ourselves, "What are the missing ingredients in the story?" Others and God are absent in the text. This man had no plan to share his wealth with others, namely, the poor who would not be able to afford his grain. In addition, he didn’t consult with God (or even his accountant!) about his plans. He simply wanted to acquire more wealth. These days, we might call it "industry" or "business acumen." But a more accurate and less savory word might be "hoarding."

In the story that Jesus is telling, God responds in a very unfavorable and somewhat unexpected way to this man’s hoarding of his wealth!

Luke 12:20 says, "But 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?’"

As you may remember from other scriptures, Jesus told his disciples to not call anyone a "fool." A fool was a thoughtless person, self-centered and obviously indifferent toward God. However, God Himself chooses to label this man as a foolish, godless person for relying upon something that he had no control over—namely, his lifespan.

A fellow named Berry offers this commentary:

We seem to be living now with the single expectation that there should and will always be more of everything, including "life expectancy." This insatiable desire for more is the result of an overwhelming sense of incompleteness, which is the result of the insatiable desire for more. This is the wheel of death." (The Way of Ignorance)

Tim Ferrill related a story where he was visiting a man who had had a massive stroke and was paralyzed on one side. Out of the other side of his mouth he told Tim that he had worked hard to get the estate of his dreams. Now he would have to sell his house, his in-ground pool, his land to someone else who would benefit from his hard work.

In Luke, the reality that all the businessman’s stuff will be given to someone else caps off this story as well. All of our plans and possessions are temporary. And we are not immortal. We will die someday, and everything we have planned for and own will end up in the hands of someone else and eventually the trash pile someday. Jesus reminds us again that His Father is in charge! (See Proverbs 16:9)

Luke 12:21 says, "He goes on to say… ‘This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God.’"

Putting this in a positive statement, I should aim for becoming rich toward God. I should live in such a way that I store up eternal treasures for myself, for others, and for God! I, we, need to turn our worry into trust! (See Luke 12:22–23)

In applying the scriptures to our lives, we have to be very careful we get the right application. Jesus is telling us we need to trust God with our futures. We need to live in such a way that it adds to the kingdom of God, not to our temporary kingdoms.

So how do we become rich toward God? Here are over a dozen examples.

• Ask God how to go about this! Especially if this is a new concept for you!
• Get ideas from others who appear to be "rich toward God."
• Ask yourself tough questions:
• Are you aware of other’s needs?
• Are you hoarding or sharing your time or money or possessions?
• Look with a healthy skepticism at all "buy now, pay later" schemes.
• Reject anything that breeds the oppression of others.
• If you need something, ask God for it! When we got back to Illinois seven years ago, I wanted a bicycle so I bought a brand new one for $300. A month later, a friend of mine offered me a used Cannon bicycle—even with an XL frame! I missed out on a blessing for both him and me!
• Don’t fall into the lure of modern gadgetry.
• Learn to enjoy things without owning them.
• Buy someone else’s lunch. It’s fun reaching across the table at a restaurant and snatching the other person’s bill. The challenge is to avoid the your-turn-now-my-turn mentality. Do this without keeping score!
• Support a missionary or your local church.
• Take an inventory! With God’s help, decide when enough is enough.
• Consider giving away or selling the extra stuff that you have. Some friends of ours from our Bible study had an extra fridge that they weren’t using and gave it to us (because of our large family). Within a few months, the freezer of the other fridge that we already had died. Our friends got to be a part of God’s blessings without knowing what was coming.
• Buy things for their usefulness rather than their status.
• Develop a habit of giving things away to those in need. De-accumulate!
• And lastly, shun anything that distracts you from seeking first the kingdom of God.

Although this scripture in Luke chapter 12 deals primarily with financial assets, it is wrapped on both sides with scripture that tells us not to worry about life in general. One of the remedies for this is to think in terms of investing in others’ lives for the eternal future.

Alcorn states in the Treasure Principle, "If we give instead of keep, if we invest in the eternal instead of in the temporal, we store up treasures in heaven that will never stop paying dividends. Whatever treasures we store up on earth will be left behind when we leave. Whatever treasures we store up in heaven will be waiting for us when we arrive. Financial planners tell us, ‘When it comes to your money, don’t think just three months or three years ahead. Think thirty years ahead.’ Christ, the ultimate investment counselor, takes it further. He says, ‘Don’t ask how your investment will be paying off in just thirty years. Ask how it will be paying off in thirty million years.’"