are you afraid of losing it?...

once in a while you’ll read in the newspaper of an elderly person who died and by all appearances they were in obvious poverty but when they moved their mattress, they found hundreds of thousands of dollars.  this isn’t somebody who saved their money but they hoarded it.

why did they do it? because they were afraid of losing it.  money had become an end in itself.  accumulating had become the goal of life.  they were so afraid of losing it so they didn’t spend it.

in new testament times you could hoard wealth three ways.

1.  stockpiling food

2.  collect clothes

3.  gather precious metals and jewels.

this is the way wealthy people showed off their wealth in nt times.  if you had money you would show it off by having a lot of food, clothes, and precious metals and jewels.

james speaks about these three types of wealth in verse 2-3 of chapter 5 (niv), your wealth has rotted, moths have eaten your clothes and your gold and silver is corroded.

the point he is making here is that whatever you simply accumulate, deteriorates.  whatever you accumulate will deteriorate.  GOD doesn’t want us to get wealthy just for the sake of getting wealth.  HE want us to put it into circulation.

he says your clothes get moth eaten.  which clothes get moth eaten?  the ones you wear all the time or the ones you keep stockpiled in the back of your closet?  the ones you hoard.

your food has gone rotten.  which food goes rotten?  the food that you eat everyday?  no, it’s the stuff in the back of the refrigerator that’s been there for three months.  we’ve created new life forms in our refrigerator.

wealth is to be used and not hoarded.  james says the wrong use of wealth, number one when it comes to accumulation don't hoard it.

just a thought from the front porch…