Chasing Riches
10 He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income; this also is vanity. 11 When goods increase, they increase who eat them, and what advantage has their owner but to see them with his eyes?
Ecclesiastes 5:10-11 ESV
God doesn’t condemn money, but He does condemn the love of money. These verses are another reminder that satisfaction can’t be found in money, because no matter how much of it you have there will remain an emptiness apart from Jesus.
King Solomon (the writer of Ecclesiastes) then proceeds to remind us that with increased wealth two things tend to happen:
More people show up to “eat”off of you
There comes a point when you won’t even be able to enjoy it for yourself
Solomon seems to paint both these things in a negative light. More money could be used to help more people, but in this case I believe that he’s alluding to people looking to take advantage of you for your money. Additionally there comes a point in time where either you’re working so much to gain wealth that you lack the time to enjoy all your “toys”, or you just have so many “toys” you look at them more than use them.
When it comes to building wealth I’m going to try to do a better job asking myself, Is this to glorify God or impress others? Moreover when building wealth we also have to be careful of placing our hope/security in the amount of money we have, versus God.