Why would I want to be rich? There's no point to it. OK, so you get to buy more things. . . Should I really care about getting more things. I can't take it with me when I die, that's for sure.(1 Tim 6:7) It doesn't benefit anyone else, the fact that I would be rich. It doesn't accomplish anything; in fact, I'd argue that it'd take me away from God. Why would I want that? My whole goal in life is to grow more intimately with Jesus Christ my Savior. Money certainly wouldn't accomplish that. (I'm not like Abraham, who, perhaps, could handle money and God. But money didn't become his god.) Money has the potential of becoming a god, even to poor people. And I don't want to love money and hate God! I want to hate money and love God!(Mt 6:24) So, why all this fuss about being rich — let me be poor. I have more going for me than the richest person on planet earth right now! 1) I'm going to heaven by God's grace 2) I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me (Phil 4:13) 3) He said He would provide all my need according to His riches 4) He said He would never leave me nor forsake me (Phil 4:19) 5) I've never seen a bird starve yet (Mt 6:26), along with a ton of other promises! I don't need to be rich, because I don't need any more stumblingblocks in my relationship with God.
Why would I want to be famous? Fame, along with pride are just extra stumblinglocks for me. What does fame accomplish? You get a bunch of pats-on-the-back from people who are gonna be dead in 60 years or so anyway. And you're gonna die someday too. What will all that fame do for you when in 100 years, there will be a whole new batch of people on this earth? You will be ancient history, maybe a brief mention in the encyclopedia. Not at all what I had hoped for. To live one's life for fame seems all together vain, in light of eternity. Man fades like the grass , he's a vapor, he's a shadow, here one minute, gone the next. The fame you get on this earth will die when you die. The glory you give God will last forever, because He never dies. And besides, He deserves all the glory anyway, don't you think? He deserves the praise for all that we are and have. Fame drains a person spiritually, mentally, and physically. Their art , or craft, never seems to be as good as it once was after fame comes. Fame is in direct competition with God, because it says " I am a somebody." No you're not. You are a nobody on a dust-sized planet in a dust-sized galaxy. Sure you may be a bigger dust than the others, but what's one dust from another? You are nothing. But my God is everything. He's the one whose worthy of fame and praise and glory. Remember the song "Glory days"? Everyone has their glory days. Everyone goes up and everyone goes down. Look at the politicians, actors, musicians; today's hot new talent will be a nobody someday and the cycle continues. But if you stay humble, you keep going up, for there is no other place for a humble person to go, but up. And there is no other place for the "top dog" to go, but down. Because you can't go any higher, you're at the top. If your fame even lasted 80 years, that'd be nothing compared to millennia upon millennia in eternity. You are a drop in the ocean or a sand particle on the beach. Why don't you choose God rather than fame? You and I have a chance to know the most famous God of all infinity. Now that is fame.
The rich and por have this in common, the LORD is the maker of them all. —Proverbs 22:2
June 2002
