October 22

Oct 22 - Today from Proverbs 22 we look at verse 2
"Rich and poor have this in common: The Lord is maker of them all."

This proverb is not about how much or how little wealth God endows us with in this life. Rather, it is about pride and prejudice. People’s financial positions in life are a result of many factors. Most of the basic factors are out of our control. People who use financial wealth as a measure of the quality and value of a human life are in serious error. God is not going to judge any man by what he was able to accumulate by the end of this life. He will judge each of us according to what we did with the resources with which He did endow us. Any who happened to be in a position to have lots of wealth will also be held with lots of responsibility before God as to how they administrated their endowment. We came into this world with nothing, and we leave it with nothing. The only thing we will take with us is our character. That is the part of our lives that God is most interested in.
People of Godly character are people who realize that every human being is uniquely made in God's image. That's what gives a person value. Sin has fractured and distorted that image, but it is not material wealth that restores it. To think that man's greatest potential and highest achievement is realized in how much wealth he accumulates is the basis for idol worship - whether we claim to be believers or not. We are called to love God with our all and to serve one another in community. There are no qualifiers on who we are to serve. Our greatest example was our Lord Jesus. The gospels say little or nothing about His financial status, but constantly focus on His excellence of character. His character is later defined by the apostle Paul in his epistle to the Galatians. We know them as the fruit of the Spirit; love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
I have had the marvelous privilege of traveling to numerous third-world countries and meeting some saints who had so very little of this world's goods yet were of the richest of character. To know them made me richer. The circumstances of life that daunted their ability to gain material wealth were the very circumstances that forged the character of Christ in them. Were they in any way inferior to the wealthy I sit with in church each week? Not at all. In fact, I suspect that on that Great Day, we will all discover that their wealth will far exceed ours.
That's just a guess of course.