continued from Part 1 (Read Pt.1 here)

Principle #4: Check yourself. Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians explains that anything that is not motivated by love, gains nothing. Ask yourself questions like: “Am I pursuing wealth for fame and fortune or to build God’s kingdom?� “Am I giving to be recognized or to meet the needs that are presented to me?� “Am I attaining this wealth honestly?� Jesus knew the ulterior motives of the Pharisees and it is the same for you and I. We need to be real with ourselves and check the motives behind our actions.

We also need to check where our hearts are. Jesus said in Matthew 6:21, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.� Do you invest in kingdom things or personal things? Do you invest on temporal things or eternal things? Where is your treasure?

Principle #5: >Develop a sense of contentment. Of the seven times in the Bible that contentment is mentioned, six of them refer to money. We need to take after Paul and learn to be content whatever the circumstances. What gets in the way of our contentment is our comparison. When we compare what we have to what others have, we lose our contentment. The problem isn’t necessarily comparison, it is that when we compare we look at the 3% of the population that has more than us and we forget the 97% of the population that have less than us.

Principle #6: Seek God’s counsel. If you begin to ask God, “What shall I do with money?� you will begin to look beyond yourself. God will open your eyes to need that you may not have seen before. We need to echo David’s prayer in 1 Chronicles 29:12 and say, “Wealth and honor come from you; you are the ruler of all things. In your hands are strength and power to exalt and give strength to all.� Since we are simply managers of God’s riches we must seek counsel from the Wonderful Counselor to discover how to give back what we’ve been given.

Principle #7: God grants people with the gift of producing wealth. Working for a non-profit requires me to fundraise my income. My biggest donor is one of my best friends from high school. He has the ability to make money and a generous heart to go with it. Churches wouldn’t have their lights on if they didn’t have people in their pews that had the ability to make money. Deuteronomy 8:18 says, “Remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth.�

I believe that if these 7 principles are applied to an honest pursuit of worldly wealth God will be pleased. As in the parable of the talents, God has entrusted to us wealth and He has gifted some with the ability to produce wealth. As good stewards of our gifts and our wealth, we must seek to build the kingdom through a healthy pursuit of worldly wealth. It is certainly not a path free of temptation, but it is path that we should not avoid.

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