We calculate net worth when we evaluate our finances, apply for loans, or make other financial decisions.

Real net worth is more holistic and spiritual. Consider these verses.

Rich Toward God

“So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God. “-Luke 12: 21

This is not so much about how to be rich toward God as it is about how not to be.

The more insular your circle of concern, the narrower your possibilities and the more fragile is your security.

The man or woman whose focus is accumulation of wealth, power, and personal gain is on unstable ground.  Anything can happen. Life changes. Circumstances change. The breath of life can be taken away in an instant.

A man wanted Jesus to arbitrate a dispute with his brother. It was all about land and money. Jesus tells him that he has no role or voice in that dispute. To engage himself in that would be mission drift. He came to help us focus on higher things.

“Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.”

What is life about?

That is the question into which Jesus would have us submerge our consciousness.

“And he spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man …”

There was a man who was not wrong because he was rich. He was wrong because he placed all of his confidence in his wealth and defined his life by it. When he lost his life, he had nothing to show for it but storehouses of stuff that now belonged to someone else.

Until the moment of his death, he was deluded by this philosophy:

“And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.”

But God has the last word:

“ Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?”

Then Jesus spells out the application:

“So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.”

What is life all about? The answer begins with asking the right questions and setting the right priorities.

Your Father’s Good Pleasure

“Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.“ -Luke 12:32

After warning the listeners about losing everything by seeking to gain riches at all costs, Jesus speaks these words, Fear not.”

Fear not because your Father loves to give and wants to give you his entire Kingdom.

He gives this advice: Divest.

“Sell that ye have, and give alms; provide yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no thief approacheth, neither moth corrupteth. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”

As we view a retrospective of the early church, we find that there were many who took this quite literally and threw off the shackles of possessions to follow Jesus.

Others took it more symbolically and dedicated all their possessions to God and lived as if God were the owner of all they had once considered their own.

In both cases, there was a conversion of their thinking about how they viewed wealth and ownership.

He taught his disciples to travel light when he said,:

“Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning; And ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their lord, when he will return from the wedding; that when he cometh and knocketh, they may open unto him immediately.”

Be ready to respond and ready to move quickly, not overloaded with stuff that ties you down.

“Blessed are those servants, whom the lord when he cometh shall find watching…”

Things can happen quickly when we live, move, and breathe in the realm of the Spirit.

We need to be ready. To be ready, we must be unencumbered.

We lose nothing by giving it all to God and to others.  It is a lesson I learned early in life from a godly grandmother. She told me two things:

You cannot outgive God and you only save, in this life, what you give away.

God’s desire is to give you far more than you could ever wish for, hope for, or accumulate on your own. It is God’s good pleasure to give you the entire Kingdom. Nothing can compete with that. Fear not, little flock!

“Be ye therefore ready also: for the Son of man cometh at an hour when ye think not.”

Will It Burn? The Big Test of Real Wealth

“I am come to send fire on the earth… “ -Luke 12:49b

Our minds go straight to hell when we read the word, “fire.” But we are wrong.

I mean that our focus is on hell and our assumption is that hell is the subject of Jesus’ discourse.

In this case, it is not. He means trouble, raging burning, consuming trouble and division.

He is predicting persecution of those who dare to follow him.

Consider the mood of the moment. Jesus is about to stare down death. He is proceeding with intention toward his date with destiny. His disciples will be terrified. Darkness will come to the earth. People will choose sides.

In the coming years, saints will be martyred, and households will be disrupted.

“I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I, if it be already kindled?”

That is the fire, and it starts with his own sacrifice.

“ But I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!  Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division: or from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother in law against her daughter in law, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.”

Not everyone will support you in your discipleship. Some will. Some will be indifferent. Some will be amused. Some will be passively tolerant. Some will be openly hostile. You cannot depend upon the support of everyone in your life. You must choose what matters no matter how hot the fire of opposition.

Jesus lets the disciples know that there are dangerous times ahead.

He never sugarcoated the call to follow him. He never watered it down. Rather, he heated it up and disclosed the cost.

His evangelism was compelling, but it was also brutally honest.