As I’m sitting on the couch of my house writing this devotional, I see my girls playing with the toys they opened yesterday for Christmas. As almost every year, it’s an embarrassment of riches that I witness when I see them go through piles of gifts from family and friends.

And what I read this morning for devotional did not sit well with me. It’s a passage in Luke 16 about a rich man suffering in hades and a poor man in Abraham’s bosom. The rich man is said to have received his good things in his lifetime but now is in anguish. However, the poor man received bad things in life but is comforted there. In light of what I was feeling about my current circumstances, I have to identify with the rich man rather than the poor man. Will I suffer forever in anguish like the rich man in Jesus’ story?

But I remembered that Abraham (who was in the story) was also a rich man. And he is in heaven with the poor man! So, it is not merely that the man was rich on earth and that is why he now is in hades. If it were so, Abraham should also be in hades. And it is not merely that the poor man was poor that he is in heaven. There is something else.

It is how we regard our wealth. Is it ours or is it the Lord’s? Abraham never regarded anything he owned as his own ultimately. This included his son Isaac. And it was demonstrated dramatically as we all know. So, it must be with everything that we are given. If for one moment we believe we have what we have because of our inherent goodness or hard work, then we are deluding ourselves like the rich man in hades.

Don’t go to hell. Hold everything loosely. It’s not yours.

PH