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Luke 12 - Devotion · The Five Minute Bible Podcast

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  Welcome to Five Minute Bible in our journey through the New
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  Testament. In each episode, we take just a
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  few minutes to focus on one chapter of the New Testament,
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  exploring the truths God is teaching us through His Word and
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  expanding our view of who He is. Before you listen, make sure
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  you've gone straight to the source, either by reading
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  today's chapter of the Bible yourself or listening to today's
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  read along episode in this podcast feed.
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  If you haven't done that yet, feel free to pause and do that
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  now. When you're ready, let's dive
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  into God's word together. In Luke chapter 12, we see
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  someone in the crowd that had been listening to Jesus ask
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  Jesus to arbitrate a disagreement between him and his
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  brother about their inheritance. The man says to Jesus, Teacher,
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  tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.
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  This man is hoping that Jesus, a righteous man with great
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  authority and influence, will be able to persuade the man's
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  brother to share his inheritance with him.
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  As we have so often seen, however, Jesus does not bend to
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  the will of the self seeking questioner.
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  Listen to Jesus response in the rest of the passage.
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  But he said to him, Man, who appointed me a judge or
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  arbitrator over you? Then he said to them, beware and
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  be on guard against every form of greed, for not even when one
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  has an abundance does his life consist of his possessions.
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  And he told him a parable, saying the land of a rich man
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  was very productive. And he began reasoning to
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  himself, saying, what shall I do since I have no place to store
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  my crops? Then he said, this is what I
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  will do. I will tear down my barns and
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  build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my
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  goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul,
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  you have many goods laid up for many years to come.
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  Take your ease, eat, drink, and be merry.
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  But God said to him, You fool, this very night your soul is
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  required of you. And now who will own what you
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  have prepared? So is the man who stores up
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  treasure for himself and is not rich toward God as he so
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  frequently does. Jesus gets right to the heart of
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  the issue. This is not about fairness, this
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  is not about justice. This is about greed.
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  This is about whether or not wealth is going to have a
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  stranglehold on this man who has been listening to Jesus.
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  Jesus teaches this man and us that whether we be rich or poor,
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  life is not about what we own. Life is not about our
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  possessions or our bank accounts.
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  In the parable Jesus tells we meet a man who has found his
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  land to be very productive. So productive that he needs more
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  room to store his produce. So he decides to tear down his
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  barns and build bigger ones. Then he reasons with himself,
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  he'll be able to take it easy for years to come.
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  He'll be able to rest and enjoy life, eat, drink and be merry.
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  But this man missed what the rest of life would really look
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  like. In fact, his time was up.
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  That very night he would die and all of those possessions he had
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  stored up, all of that wealth he had amassed would be left.
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  He could not take 1 penny with him to the grave.
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  This man would find what the Book of James tells us to be
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  true, that we are just a vapor that appears for a little while
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  and then vanishes away. Now the issue with the man in
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  the parable is not that his land was productive.
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  It is not that he was wealthy. Instead, as Jesus says, the
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  problem is that he had stored up treasures for himself, but had
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  not been rich toward God. Here is one thing you can be
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  sure of whether you're rich or poor.
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  If you want to know how much of your wealth you will leave
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  behind when you die, rest assured you will leave behind
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  all of it. Money and earthly possessions
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  can only be of value to us when we are living on earth.
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  They can only be used or stewarded during the short vapor
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  of a life. We can use them for ourselves,
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  to eat, drink, and be merry, or we can use them for God.
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  We can steward our resources as our Master intends, investing
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  them in the Kingdom, using them to be a blessing to others.
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  Or we can use them on our own selfish desires, investing them
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  in our own temporal pleasures. Either way, you will not take
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  any of it with you when you die, but you will give an account
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  before God of how you stewarded what He entrusted to you.
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  So how will He find you? Will he find you with
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  storehouses of earthly treasure left behind and pour toward Him?
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  Or will He find you rich toward Him, having invested His
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  resources wisely as a faithful servant and steward?
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  Do not let wealth pull you away from Jesus.
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  Use what you've been given, be rich toward God, and invest in
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  what is eternal rather than what is temporal and fading away.