It is unbelievable what some jobs pay in this country!  A money market manager can make anywhere between $500, 000 to $1, 000, 000 per year while only 30 percent of money markets are successfully managed!  An airline pilot for Delta is paid $250, 000 per year to sit in the seat of a nearly automated aircraft.  Wedding photographers can garner up to $1, 900 per wedding!  Ex-politicians on a speaking circuit can expect millions for speeches given.  We won’t even get into compensation to lawyers in suit settlements. 

Are these overpaid or overrated?  We will probably differ on our opinion for that.  What makes us “want” or desire this kind of compensation for our time or talents?  Is it that we need these amounts?  No, for others get by and always will, on far less.

 Well, then what is it?  “It” is called greed.  It is an excessive desire to have or acquire something, most often, wealth and Jesus warns against it in Luke 12:15… in fact He warns against all sorts of greed.  When we examine the concept of greed we soon realize that it has selfish motivation at its core.  What can I get?  It’s all mine!  All I want is more, more!!  Does that sound like the attitude that Jesus said His disciples should have?  Is that the picture we see of an individual who has “died to self…carrying their cross…following Jesus?”

Please don’t misunderstand; I am not saying a person cannot be affluent, but that they are to be faithful to God in that affluence.  That faithfulness should affect their stewardship in what they have been blessed with.  There are a number of examples of Godly people in scripture who were wealthy or even merely well to do.  Their focus however, was on how it would be used to glorify the God Who had blessed them.  Jesus knew how important it was to guard against greed and its insidious attempts to affect our lives.  The real question for us today is, do we realize and understand its danger?  Are we faithful stewards?

Copyright © 2004, Nolan P. Rutter