How to be rich toward God

When we began our study of Psalm 49, we visited the gospel of Luke and read a parable given to us by our Savior. Let's re-visit that today:

 Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.” 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. 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.” (Luke 12:15-21)

In the past two weeks, we have studied and noted that those who trust in their wealth, their power, and their own strength may prosper for a time, but that they cannot "cheat" death. They will meet the same end whether they have hundreds of dollars or millions of dollars. The ones who admire them will observe that they cannot "take it with them," but many will not learn the lesson there. 

The farmer in this parable was like that. In his arrogance, he ignored God's blessings on his farm and his crops, and patted himself on the back. He planned to build bigger barns and then to celebrate - not to thank God. 

But have we ever considered the final phrase of the parable? What does that phrase "rich toward God" mean? Most of the time we are so focused on paying our bills, buying our groceries, and putting a few mites aside for our savings that we don't stop and think about it. We are so concerned with being rich for ourselves that we don't give a thought to being rich toward our Lord.

How can a person be rich toward God? Let's think on that, this week.

Please add this parable to your Bible reading for this week, as we study.