1 Timothy 6:6-11

1 Timothy 6:6-11  But godliness with contentment is great gain.  For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it.  But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that.  People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction.  For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.  Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.  But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness.

Desiring wealth, property and the good things of life has always been a temptation to the flesh.  For we think, why not--we only go around once?  Why not accumulate as much as possible and then pass it on to our posterity?  Don't we know, the winner of this game of life is the one who has the most at the end of his or her life?  However, this is the focus of a carnal man.  Now, wealth, property and good things are not bad.  Many people inherit such largesse, and some just gradually accumulate wealth as they journey through life without too much effort, but the hot pursuit of wealth is not good for the spirit.  For the pursuit of wealth is an indicator that this life, this world, is your home.  For a Christian, this orientation is wrong.    John warns us, do not love the world or anything in the world. (1 John 2:15)  Jesus says, “No one can serve two masters.  Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.  You cannot serve both God and Money.  (Matthew 6:24)  If we spend our whole life and energy acquiring wealth, we pretty much love and serve it.  It would be incongruous to expect anything else.  

Now this temptation to live for money and wealth is a great one, endemic to all mankind, particularly in our modern world where we often measure success by a person's net worth.  To be content because we brought nothing into the world and we can take nothing out of it is quite hard for most of us to focus upon.  I know of people who say that they are content with what they have, but then I see them hassling their children to do exceptionally well in school so that they might gain the job that brings the most prestige or wealth.  Of course there is nothing wrong with having a well paying job, but many times the parent wants the child to have life a little easier than what they personally experienced.  Otherwise, they want their children to have more wealth than they did, more leisure time.  Sometimes, this brings confusion to their child, for the parents are subliminally telling their child that they were "losers in life," and now they want success for their child, which can be translated into adding wealth, property and good things to his or her life.  

Such choices can lead to real disaster for a child because many times people who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction, even wandering from the faith and piercing themselves with many griefs.  A child can become a success in the world, but a failure in the spiritual world if the child is oriented toward this life rather than eternal life.  Many parents have lost their children or grandchildren because of inadvertently promoting the love of wealth and status in this world.  Paul says, you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness.  How can we tell our children to flee from all this when we condition them to gain as much of the world as they can?  These two lives are diametrically opposed: a life of gain, a life of sacrifice. The disciples were amazed at his words.  But Jesus said again, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God!  It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”  (Mark 10:24-25)  All things are possible with God, but still we put our children in stress when we imply that they should gain as much of the world as possible when we want them to seek first the kingdom of heaven.  We lead them to a very dangerous place.  Paul urged his spiritual son to understand that godliness with contentment is great gain.  We and our children should also follow his advice.