Three Common Denominators of Materially Blessed Believers | Matthew 19:22-23

[00:00:00] We'll truth daily. This is Daily Truths with Dave Ahlman. Sell everything you have, give it to the poor and come and follow me. Now we pick up verse 22, and finish the story when the young man heard this he went away sorrowful, free-eyed, great possessions.

[00:00:42] And Jesus said, was disciples, truly I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven. What's Jesus saying there? He's not saying that if a person is rich they can't be saved.

[00:00:57] He's not saying that. He's just saying it's more difficult. Now why is that? When you think about people that are materially blessed, they can look at everything they have and they can say, hey,

[00:01:08] why do I need a relationship with God when I got all this stuff? I'm not sure there's a heaven. I'm not sure there's hell. I'm not even sure that God exists. So I've got all this stuff. I'm good.

[00:01:20] It reminds of the me of the rich man in Luke chapter 12 that had all these material possessions. He was very abundantly blessed by his riches and all of a sudden he thought,

[00:01:31] okay, I've got all these crops. I'm very successful. My barns aren't big enough for me to distort all the way.

[00:01:37] I'm going to tear them down, build bigger barns, take it easy, eat drink and be merry for a. I'm going to live a life of leisure. And then all of a sudden what happened?

[00:01:45] Jesus said that God said to him, hey, your souls required of you. You have all these material possessions, but you're not rich towards God, right?

[00:01:55] Here's the thing about material possessions. The more you own the more it owns you. It needs maintaining, storing all this different kind of stuff. The more you own the more it owns you.

[00:02:11] Now as I said before, Jesus is not saying that it's impossible for a person who's materialized blessed to go to heaven.

[00:02:19] Jesus isn't saying that. He's saying it's more difficult. Now I've known many people who down through the years were materialized but still had a deep relationship with God.

[00:02:30] There's three things they had in common. Number one, they prioritized their relationship with God. They knew the material possessions that they had in their life was not more important than seeking for us the kingdom of God.

[00:02:45] And so they worship the Lord regularly. They heard His word regularly. They studied the scriptures regularly. They used their time and talents and gifts to serve other people in love consistently.

[00:02:57] They prioritized their relationship with God. Secondly, these people all knew where their riches came from. They realized that God had given them the gifts, the ability, the cognitive ability, all these different things had come from God to bless other people with the material gifts and wealth that God had given them.

[00:03:18] They realized that God had done it. Instead of doing this, they do this. God, I know you're the one who's done it for me and I don't give myself the credit.

[00:03:29] I give you all the credit. And thirdly, they are very generous in giving what they have away to ministries, to missions to the local congregation, etc. They are generous in knowing A where it comes from and B, I'm going to give a lot of it away because I want to support mission and ministry to get the gospel out.

[00:03:51] So there you go. That's kind of what today's daily truth is about it. Again, let me read a write. Jesus was not saying, if you're rich, you can't be saved. He's just saying that there's a lot of pitfalls and pathfalls that come with being materially blessed. So be careful.

[00:04:06] Make sure you prioritize your relationship with God. No where it comes from and be generous in giving your gifts away. So I hope this is helpful for you if you are materially blessed.

[00:04:18] Go to church. Realize where it comes from and be generous in giving much of it away. Plus, that's a tax break too. Not to mention that. All right. So I have a great day in the Lord Jesus Christ. And that is today's daily truth.

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