Meaningless Money

March 29, 2019

Whoever loves money never has enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income. This too is meaningless. Ecclesiastes 5:10

Money itself is meaningless. Solomon, the man who wrote today’s verse, was the richest man who ever lived. Most of us might struggle a bit with the thought that getting a major increase to our income will not satisfy us. We’d at least like to give it a shot.

But Solomon had it all. His peak net worth was $2.2 trillion in today's market. Solomon ruled from 970 BC to 931 BC, and during this time he is said to have received 25 tons of gold for each of the 39 years of his reign. That boggles the mind. We throw around the words “million, billion, and trillion” like they were doggie treats. What is one trillion dollars really? ONE TRILLION dollars! That’s the number we've been hearing so much about. What is a trillion dollars? It's a million million. It's a thousand billion. It's a one followed by twelve zeros. That’s a lot of moolah. And Solomon said it never satisfies.

Why? Because we were not made for money; we were made for meaning.

We were not made for stuff; we were made for stories.

Our lives are eternally different because Jesus came to write redemption’s story. He put aside His own desires, and He leveraged everything He had for our benefit, giving His entire life. His story became our story. Now we are privileged and called to do as He did. We get to exchange our money for meaning, our stuff for stories. We can be part of something so much bigger than we ever dreamed.

That’s why Jesus said to us in Matthew 16:19-20 to not build massive collections of money and things here, but to store up treasures in heaven. Here, everything eventually rusts, wears out, is destroyed. But when we invest in the kingdom, helping with the stories that make up the whole redemption legacy, we have meaning forever.

• What do you feel like it will take to satisfy you?
• Are you willing to try Jesus’ way? Talk to Him about it.