God Wants You to Be Rich!

" I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly"

(John 10:10b)

The divine feasts, as narrated both in the Old and New testaments, speak always of abundance of food and drink. Nobody gets hungry at the table prepared by God. God wants to share totally his abundance with us, as he told the older son in the parable of the Prodigal Son.

But then, how many times we prefer to live in hunger than avail of this abundance! The story of the Prodigal Son could be the life of anyone of us. When we enjoy good health, when our business runs good and our banks accounts are full of savings, we easily forget about God. We only return to him, like the Prodigal Son, when everything goes wrong. In returning to him, we dream only of recovering what we lost, not understanding that the most important treasure is God himself. God gives abundantly because he gives himself. If we lose him, we lose everything.

How many holy people spent their lives in the most abject misery and poverty, yet they still exuded immense joy for the presence of God in their hearts. Poverty with God is better than prosperity without him.

You probably don't work for free –you need money to live on, pay the rent with and save money for a rainy day. The Bible recognizes that a valuable worker deserves fair recompense.

Though the Bible recognizes the need to earn a living, it also tells us God's kingdom is not like that. We can't work our way to heaven, because we can't do anything to make ourselves right with God. The only one who can do that is God's perfect Son Jesus. When we believe that He died in order to forgive our sins, we agree with God on the subject, and our eternal destination becomes heaven. God gives us the gift for doing nothing more than trusting in Him.

So today, instead of spending time catching up on the office work, why not trust in God? Spend time in worship, not work, and instead of trying to enter heaven on your own credit, you'll arrive there safely on your trust in Jesus.

We should end our day in prayer reaffirming that the goal of human life is to be with God. Our dream of quality life is not brought about the riches or material possession alone. We dream of living free from sickness and death. Only God can give this.

A good practice also is to meditate constantly on the Holy Bible. Keep this Book of the law on your lips. Recite it day and night, that you may observe carefully all that is written in it; then you will attain your goal.

The well being brought by earthly riches pales in comparison to the happiness of heaven. The apostle Paul, who had a first-hand experience of heaven, spoke of it as happiness beyond words and imagination: "This man…was taken up to Paradise where he heard word that cannot be told: things which humans cannot express".