Have you ever had "more month at the end of your paycheck than paycheck at the end of your month", as one brother in Christ has worded it to me? It's not a good feeling when the money runs out and you've got half the month's groceries and gas still needing to be bought. Can you imagine living paycheck to paycheck for years on end? Perhaps you don't have to imagine at all. Maybe you're on your last P, B, & J and your about to try a ritz cracker, ketchup and mustard sandwich…you perhaps can teach me a thing or two about financial trials. Whether you're sipping a 'vente' frappuccino from Starbucks in your leather recliner using your iPhone or at the local library with sweat down your back from walking 3 miles there because your car has no gas, James has this message for you: financial stability is no way to measure the status of your life, but only the riches that you will carry with you beyond the grave.
In James 1:9-11, we read, "Let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation, and the rich in his humiliation, because like a flower of the grass he will pass away. For the sun rises with its scorching heat and withers the grass; its flower falls, and its beauty perishes. So also will the rich man fade away in the midst of his pursuits."
James wrote his letter to a group of Christians who were financially impoverished and were being mistreated by the wealthy landowners they often worked under, so some of their greatest trials involved money or the love of it. Throughout his letter, James almost views physical poverty as a sign of spiritual riches, simply because of these poor believers. In the midst of his exhortation for these believers to endure trials in a God-honoring way, he addresses the issue of finances. No, James has not gone off into another topic altogether, as some would argue, but is now going to teach these Christians to endure their trials by not letting their view of money cloud the spiritual wealth they have in Christ.
We live in a world that often measures a person's significance by the size of their bank account and the type of clothing they wear. In a world like this, where people care more about your title than your name, God calls us to go completely against the grain. In fact, Jesus taught that releasing our grip on money for the good of helping others to Him is one of the clearest ways to tell if you are saved at all. Remember Jesus' words to the rich young ruler who claimed to have kept all the commandments, but longed to know how to get to heaven? Jesus said to him, "You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me." (Mark 10:21). He basically told him that a treasure chest of spiritual riches awaits the one who is willing to let go of their physical riches in pursuit of Jesus. Did you get that? What if your life were characterized more by clinging to Jesus than your next paycheck? What if you were more excited about the riches you have been given by knowing the grace of Christ than those that keep your belly full and your car running? What if there was a treasure chest awaiting you in heaven that made Donald Trump's wealth look like Monopoly money in comparison? If you are reading this and you have trusted in Christ, been born again by the Spirit of God, and are living for God's glory, don't fall into the trap of believing that your financial stability matters more than your spiritual inheritance. If you're reading this and have never trusted in Christ to be born again, then don't follow the world's perspective of thinking the here and now is all that matters…does it really matter how much you make if you can't take it with you when you die? If you die without Christ, you die an enemy of God and will eternally be spiritually poor and under God's judgment in Hell. So your choices are: realize your spiritually dead and don't have a penny to your soul and come to Christ, then live the rest of your physical and eternal life with the greatest treasures of all…or live to serve the mighty dollar in this life and be spiritually broke and separated from God in this life and for the rest of eternity.
Hear what Jesus had to say to those whose riches are in this life only…"'Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?' So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God…Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys." (Luke 12:20b-21, 33). I leave you to ponder this amazing truth for all who would find the joy of having a bank account that never decreases in value, even 10,000 years from now: "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you by His poverty might become rich" (2 Corinthians 8:9).
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