Daily Reading: Luke 12:16-21
And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. 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 my surplus grain. 19 And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.” “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?” “This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.”
Having more money doesn’t make a person wiser (Luke 12:16). Be on guard against the deception of money (Luke 12:15) that can lead to foolishness in our thinking (Luke 12:19).
The chapter starts off with a warning as the Pharisaical teaching is compared to yeast; here is why:
1) starts off small and little, but gradually increases and spreads
2) it infects and corrupts the whole (men's principles and practices)
and
3) puffs and swells them up with a vain opinion of themselves (Luke 12:1).
Jesus’ warning against the doctrine and lifestyle of the Pharisees and the man from the crowd’s concern about possessions are what precipitates the teaching of the rich fool which addresses them both.
Being rich toward God (Luke 12:21) is the opposite of acting as if life consists in the abundance of your possessions. Being rich toward God considers relationship with God as greater riches than anything on the earth. Being rich toward God means using earthly riches to show how much you value God. The issue is that God was not this man’s treasure.
Four Ways to Guard Against All Kinds of Greed
1. Knowing Jesus is worth infinitely more than all earthly things.
Philippians 3:8, “I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.
2. Satisfy Yourself with the Steadfast Love of God.
“Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days” (Psalm 90:14).
3. Rest in God’s promise to meet our needs.
“My God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19). “God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work” (2 Corinthians 9:8). “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” (Matthew 6:33). I will choose to rest my soul on these promises.
4. Turn the prosperity of my fields into blessings for others, the building of the Kingdom of God.
In everything I showed you that by working hard in this manner you must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, that He Himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’ Acts 20:35.