RICH AND POOR

RICH AND POOR 

"There is that makes himself rich, yet hath nothing: there is that makes himself poor, yet hath great wealth" Prov. 13:7

How self-evident a truth this is on the most ordinary level of experience and observation; and yet how slow men are to act upon it! Our own age abounds with men who have made themselves RICH, and yet have nothing. They have amassed great wealth, and yet it has NO PURCHASING POWER in the true things of life. It cannot insure HEALTH, it brings no HAPPINESS, and it often destroys PEACE. On the other hand, there are those who have IMPOVERISHED themselves, and have by so doing become WEALTHY in all the highest senses of the word. How is this to be explained? Is not the solution found by laying the emphasis in each of the CONTRASTIVE declarations, upon the word SELF? To make SELF-RICH, is to destroy the capacity for life. To make SELF-POOR, by enriching others, is to LIVE. It is impossible to consider this saying of Hebrew wisdom, without thinking of the One Who was incarnate Wisdom. He for our sake became poor, and thereby He gains the ultimate WEALTH, more dear to His heart and the heart of God than all beside, that of redeemed humanity. Thus the ancient word becomes for us living, powerful, prevailing in and through Him. To follow Him is to EMPTY SELF, to make ourselves POOR by the outpouring of all for the sake of others; and that is to have great WEALTH. Let this word be kept in the realm of the material, and then its final interpretation or appeal is contained in the words of Jesus: "Make to yourselves friends by means of the mammon of unrighteousness, that when it shall fail, they may receive you into the eternal tabernacles." (Luke 16:9).