God’s wealth…

 

I was listening to the radio in the car two days ago, when I heard this: "Say, 'my Lord is not sick so I can’t be sick. My Lord is not poor, so I can't be poor. My Lord is rich, so wealth is my share.' "And other similar statements.

This is actually just a symptom of a deeper disease: the humanization of God. We easily tend to forget that it is figuratively that the Scriptures tell us of His voice, His hand, His arm, His wrath etc. We have eventually imagined that God do have a mouth, a heart, a head and four limbs, …just like us! Besides, it is not by chance if He has often been represented as an august old man. And knowing that we were created in His image and after His likeness, has not made things easy. We really think that God looks like us, that He is a ‘human being’ like us. Someone has well said, "We have made God in OUR image."

God is Spirit. This is what Jesus reveals to the Samaritan woman. God is Spirit and we must worship Him in Spirit as well.

God is Spirit. He cannot be physically ill, unlike us, who are made of flesh and blood. It is not necessary to remind us that many God-fearing people fall sick or even die as a result of a disease, without any possibility to question their faith.

God is Spirit. He is neither poor nor rich; He doesn’t need well-provisioned bank accounts. He doesn’t need money to purchase cars, houses, expensive watches or designer’s shoes. But we do. When the Bible speaks of His wealth, it does not refer to material wealth. I would not say that His wealth is therefore spiritual, it would still be very reductive. A man may be spiritually rich, but God is far above and beyond this description. Indeed, when talking about wealth, there is always implicitly an element of comparison underlying with something else which is not wealth yet. God is outside any possible categorization. He cannot be compared in whatever way to whatever. The entire cosmos is His, as well as everything that might exist beyond or outside of the universe. He can destroy everything in an instant and rebuild it all as well instantly. EVERYTHING belongs to Him; I belong to Him and we all belong to Him. What does our notion of wealth and riches worth in view of that? A mere concept that can only be applied to men…

If you are running after 'prosperity', I mean wealth as understood by the vast majority of people, then there will always be someone richer than you. There will always be someone who can allow himself some more extravagances that you will never be able to afford and beside whom you will always feel poor. What are you looking for? What is your contentment gap? In short, what is the minimum you need and the maximum with which you will be totally satisfied?

The next time someone tells us that our fate is to be rich because our Lord is, let us take the time to ask ourselves in which manner the Father actually wants to enrich us.

“Beloved, in regard to all things I pray that you prosper and be in health, even as your soul prospers.” 3 John 2