Who wants to be a millionaire?

Our constant craving for more and more, our insatiable appetite for things and the banks' willingness to hand over the cash were the root of the trouble.

But what are we to learn from the downward sloping line? What is God saying to us? At the very least He is saying that money and possessions aren't what life is about.

God is saying that money and possessions aren't what life is about. What God said to a nation over two millennia ago seems so relevant for our day, Consider your ways. You have sown much and harvested little. You eat but never have enough; you drink but never have your fill. You clothe yourselves but no one is warm. And he who earns wages does so to put them into a bag with holes, Haggai 1: 5-6.

The economic crisis of that day was a wake up call and could this one not be the same loving message from God?

As the hard earned savings of many pour out from a bag with holes we are being brought to see that the things in which we put our hope and confidence are so fragile. We are investing our lives in the wrong stuff, hoarding what perishes. We would pity a child saving cream buns in a cupboard in their bedroom. We know that one day they will open the cupboard and find a mouldy mass.

God in His great love brings about these mega money meltdowns to grab our attention. He wants us to see that the treasures that we try to hold to: money, savings, property, jobs, things, are not real lasting satisfiers at all.

He is showing us that the things that we consider riches are not riches at all. He is showing us that as sinners we are grabbing on to the wrong things in our search for happiness, security and wealth.

A sentence from the Bible explains where true wealth is found. For you know the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor so that you by His poverty might become rich,
2 Corinthians 8: 9.

Paul was writing to some people who had become Christians and reminding them of what Jesus Christ has done. In love and mercy the Lord Jesus left the riches of heaven and came to our spiritually bankrupt world. The reason that He came was to rescue sinners from the judgment of God. He did that by taking the punishment for sin that sinners deserved. On the cross He became really poor, bearing the wrath of God.

We are grabbing the wrong things in our search for happiness When we come to see that we are spiritually poor, separated from God because of our sin, and we turn and trust in Jesus Christ alone we become really rich. Rich with grace. Rich with forgiveness, reconciled to God and sure and certain of a place in heaven. That is the wealth that Jesus offers you right now. Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal, Matthew 6: 19-20.