Recently, Bijli needed some cash, so he went to his trunk, containing his lifetime of savings, and opened the lid only to be shocked by what he saw!  Termites had managed to eat up ½ of all his wealth!

This is certainly a sorrowful thing to have happen to anyone, but we are reminded of the story Jesus told, in Luke 12, about another farmer, whose farm was making him a wealthy man.  So, he decided to put up bigger barns to hold all his fruits and goods, and then to take life easy – to eat, drink and be merry.

But then God said unto him “Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?”

Jesus finished the story by saying, “So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.”

Can I ask you tonight, “How rich are you toward God?”

The size of your bank account, and the value of all your earthly assets, mean very little if you are not rich toward God.

When the Old Testament Prophet Daniel was an old man in Babylon, the king at that time, Belshazzar, was one of the wealthiest men in the world.  Yet, one night at a party, in Daniel 5, while Belshazzar was eating and drinking and being merry, the fingers of a man’s hand appeared and wrote some strange words on the wall of his party chamber.  Daniel was called in to interpret, and ONE of the phrases he interpreted was this, “Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting.”  Belshazzar died that night and went to hell.

But you say, “I’m a born-again Christian,” and I rejoice with you in that!  But that still doesn’t mean that you are rich toward God.  Jesus counselled the church at Laodicea to buy spiritual ‘gold’ so they might be rich.  Spiritual ‘gold’ are the treasures of God that ANY Christian can have, and they include the “riches in heaven” that Jesus spoke of in the Sermon on the Mount.

Beloved, let us be RICH towards God by investing our time, talents, and treasures in His kingdom!