Today’s Podcast
Today’s Bible reading plan:
Read it in a year – Ezra 1-5
see the whole year’s plan [here](http://www.bible-reading.com/bible-plan.pdf)
Today’s Devotional
Luke 12:14-21
Jesus: Since when am I your judge or arbitrator?
Then He used that opportunity to speak to the crowd.
Jesus: You’d better be on your guard against any type of greed, for a person’s life is not about having a lot of possessions.
(then, beginning another parable) A wealthy man owned some land that produced a huge harvest. He often thought to himself, “I have a problem here. I don’t have anywhere to store all my crops. What should I do? I know! I’ll tear down my small barns and build even bigger ones, and then I’ll have plenty of storage space for my grain and all my other goods. Then I’ll be able to say to myself, ‘I have it made! I can relax and take it easy for years! So I’ll just sit back, eat, drink, and have a good time!’”
Then God interrupted the man’s conversation with himself. “Excuse Me, Mr. Brilliant, but your time has come. Tonight you will die. Now who will enjoy everything you’ve earned and saved?”
This is how it will be for people who accumulate huge assets for themselves but have no assets in relation to God.
What do Jesus’ words mean for us today?
I hope you’ve never been part of those inheritance squabbles. I’ve seen a few in my lifetime. I think my family on both side through several links are smart enough and genteel enough not to get into those kinds of brutal arguments. But I’ve seen some of those battles. No one comes out well when a wealthy or even a not so wealthy family member dies and siblings or children and grandchildren start fighting over who should receive what portions of the estate. People come out of the woodwork demanding their part. Court battles erupt and there is anything but respect for the deceased’s last will and testament, especially if a large portion is given to a charity. It seems people just don’t want to work for their money anymore.
Jesus addressed the man who wanted arbitration about an inheritance, but that wasn’t the case for the wealthy person in Jesus’ parable. The subject of the parable was a man who earned his fortune through hard work, but then decided it was time to retire early. He built his estate and accumulated more than he could ever spend. He was ready to sit back and enjoy the good life.
That sounds just like the pitch all our financial planners give us, doesn’t it? Start saving your money at a young age. Set aside all you can as soon as you can. Then by the time you’re 55, you’ll have enough to retire and do what you want. You can quit working and travel the world. Put your money in the right stocks and watch them grow at enormous rates and then just sit back with your toes in the sand and do nothing but enjoy the fruits of your short life of labor. Doesn’t that sound good?
Only that’s not God’s plan for us. He never talks about retirement. God never gives us a date to quit working on His plans. He never tells us to sit back and do nothing. And there are some important reasons for that. I haven’t looked lately, but a few years ago, there were some interesting morbidity mortality rates concerning military retirees. Those were the only ones I was researching at the time because at the time I was looking at my own retirement. The research showed that the average life expectancy for someone retiring from military service was just under ten years.
That was a little scary to me. There were several reasons given. Many stopped their daily exercise routine the military sort of forces us into and so gained enormous amounts of weight in the first several months out of service that never came off. That contributes to lots of other problems like diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, etc. Many stopped getting routine medical care because they weren’t required to as they were while on active duty so those underlying problems weren’t found soon enough to take care of them. But one of the astounding reasons given for many died so quickly after retirement was their lack of purpose for living. The just quit feeling useful to society and gave up on life. So if any disease popped up they didn’t fight it, they just died. The flu killed them. Pneumonia killed them. A heart attack killed them. Because they didn’t have the will to fight to live.
Solomon learned the hard way, and wrote in Ecclesiastes for us, life is meaningless unless lived for the right reasons. We can dabble in lots of stuff, earn lots of money, have our names in lights and be known around the world. None of that matters. Unless we are working out God’s purpose in our lives, life is truly meaningless. All the riches in the world don’t matter and don’t do anything for us. Besides, ask all those rich folks lying in those neatly mowed graves and polished mausoleum, how useful is all that wealth to them now?
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