God’s Instruction About Wealth

““Be careful that you don’t forget the Lord your God by failing to keep His command—the ordinances and statutes—I am giving you today. When you eat and are full, and build beautiful houses to live in, and your herds and flocks grow large, and your silver and gold multiply, and everything else you have increases, be careful that your heart doesn’t become proud and you forget the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the place of slavery. He led you through the great and terrible wilderness with its poisonous snakes and scorpions, a thirsty land where there was no water. He brought water out of the flint-like rock for you. He fed you in the wilderness with manna that your fathers had not known, in order to humble and test you, so that in the end He might cause you to prosper. You may say to yourself, ‘My power and my own ability have gained this wealth for me,’ but remember that the Lord your God gives you the power to gain wealth, in order to confirm His covenant He swore to your fathers, as it is today. If you ever forget the Lord your God and go after other gods to worship and bow down to them, I testify against you today that you will perish. Like the nations the Lord is about to destroy before you, you will perish if you do not obey the Lord your God.” (Deuteronomy 8:11–20, HCSB)

We live in a society today which encourages entrepreneurship. We want people to create wealth in this country. We encourage it because it creates jobs and allows other people to work. However, we also glorify these people as superstars. The fact is that God allowed them to make wealth. He gave them their riches. He encouraged them to be wealth-builders and He gave them the resources to make wealth.
So any kind of wealth that allows me to create, we need to attribute to God. Instead of believing that my own resources caused me to rich, we have to acknowledge God in our abilities. When we forget that, we become greedy. Greed turns good entrepreneurship into class warfare. This is very unhealthy for nations, for families, and ultimately for individuals.