Bible Verses
“For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world.” – 1 John 2:16
“Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” – 2 Corinthians 9:7
“Whoever loves money never has enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income. This too is meaningless.” – Ecclesiastes 5:10
“Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” – Hebrews 13:5
Christian Bible Lesson Overview
The amazing point I learned when reading the Bible and then studying people who follow Christian lessons is that when the lessons are implemented by an individual or a group, not only do the affected people benefit but the person or group who followed the lessons improved their lives.
What good is wealth if you must sacrifice a major percentage of your life to achieve it? How much wealth is enough? If you work hard all your life just to earn money and never apply that wealth to other people or even yourself, what have you accomplished?
It is important to build true friendships with lots of people and benefit from that effort by enjoying the relationship with other people, and the knowledge that you accomplished something for many other people.
Christian Bible Lesson for Today
Alan focused his efforts on work. He spent many hours studying business in college. His objective was to become worth over $1 Billion Dollars. He started a software development company. He spent virtually all his waking hours building the company. As soon as he achieved some success, he immediately invested the new earnings into additional departments.
Within twenty years he expanded his business from a major city in Iowa to a national company that sold software worldwide. As the company grew, he worked harder which meant longer hours. He did not have time for vacations or to support his family and friends because he always had a new service to promote. He did not even have time to rest or take vacations. Most of his friends from growing up lost touch with him. He communicated with his immediate family but did not spend significant time with them.
He did grow his personal worth to over $1 Billion Dollars, but the cost was great.
Alan’s brother Terry had a completely different life. Terry worked enough to support his wife and two children, but he made sure he spent plenty of time with his family. His family worked with groups that supported the community. Terry developed a network of close friends with all different backgrounds. His friends were not necessarily wealthy, but they did support each other. When Terry needed help, there were many people close to him that would do what they could for him.
Shortly after Alan accumulated over $1 billion in assets, he became ill. He had cancer. All the wealth he accumulated would not help him. He was only 57 years old and never had the opportunity to use all the money he possessed.
Terry immediately went to the hospital to visit Alan. Terry asked Alan what he could do to help him. Terry said he would do anything he could to make things better.
Alan looked at Terry and said, “I should have learned from you. I worked so hard to accumulate a fortune and now I have only a little while to live and I will not benefit from it. I do not even have close friends to be here for me. Terry, I am sorry I did not listen to you much earlier.”
Terry told Alan that Alan did work very hard, and he still had some time to help other people benefit from the work he did. Terry said that he would help Alan make a positive difference for many people so that Alan would know that he helped many other people and that his life did have meaning.
Christian Bible Lesson Summary
You can sacrifice much of your life accumulating wealth, but if you spend all your time earning money, you may find yourself old, and lonely. You may wonder why you spent all that time earning money you will never spend. When you try to give to other people, there may come a time when you benefit from the very people that you helped.