The rich man's wealth is his strong city, and as an high wall in his own conceit. Proverbs 18:11

Some of the hardest people to reach about their need for a relationship with God are the ones who are rich in talents or material goods. Ted Turner is an example of this. He is divorced from his wife, Jane Fonda, who is now born again. Mr. Turner is infamous for his negative attitude towards God and Christians, and then found himself married to one.

Jane Fonda has experienced everything that wealth and power can bring, and yet turned to the Lord to fill a vacuum that only He can fill. If anyone could have found peace and fulfillment through talent and wealth, surely she could have. Instead, she finally came to herself and discovered the only true riches, a loving relationship with her Heavenly Father and His Son Jesus Christ.

Mr. Turner has worked hard for what he has accumulated. He is an intelligent and talented man who has used his skills to build a financial empire in communications envied by many. However, when the time of his last breath comes, what will it all do to save his life? Will he be able to stave off death with his talents, his wealth, or his intelligence?

Obviously, the answer is no. Many talented individuals lie in the grave, largely forgotten by the current generation no matter how wealthy and powerful they were in life. Their fortunes were often squandered by their children and grandchildren. Few businesses and fortunes survive their founders for very long, and none bought even one more breath for their possessors.

Further, it's bad enough when people rely on their talents and riches instead of relying on God, but worse when they use unjust means to accumulate their fortunes. Prosperity and power are two of the most sought after goals today. Success is so eagerly pursued that many people will use any method to achieve it, but the end does not always justify the means.

Godly authority is always given with the requirement of godly mercy and justice towards those placed under that authority. This holds true for pastors and members of their congregations, employers and employees, parents and children, political leaders and citizens, judges and the accused brought before them. Godly authority is never a license to abuse or dominate someone else, especially for any form of personal gain.

The saints of God are being prepared for their heavenly assignments during this time. A king and priest in the kingdom of God will not be a haughty individual lording it over lesser beings under his rule. A position of authority in God's kingdom is given so that you can take care of the people assigned to your charge. Jesus explained this when he washed the disciples' feet, a job normally given to the lowest servant in the household.

Jesus was tested through suffering during His life on Earth among us. He has proven that He is worthy of the glory and honor and power of being king over us, since He was willing even to lay down His life to redeem us in obedience to God's command. His children likewise must be trustworthy to obey God in their duties to guide and provide for the children given into their charge. We are learning through suffering the consequences of a leader who is untrustworthy so that we will never repeat Satan's mistake when we are appointed to our posts in Heaven.

God created us for companionship, not for household servants. Part of His relationship with us is that He takes care of our needs, and allows the more gifted children to help Him with that. The relationship between parents and older siblings and the younger children in the family on Earth is a reflection of that aspect of our relationship with Him. God specifically condemns those who abuse a position of authority or strength to oppress others.

We are made with different gifts and different levels of those gifts so that we must depend on God and each other. God does not want us to be so gifted that we become puffed up with pride as Satan was over his great gifts. We need to learn how to use and appreciate our gifts as well as the gifts of others without becoming haughty and cruel towards each other. As we grow spiritually in this way, God often gives us more and greater gifts to use as we can handle them properly. We should always remember that God has the greatest gifts of all, yet never uses them to oppress or harm other beings. We need to grow up in Christ to be just like Him, including in this very important aspect of our lives.

God wants people to prosper, but He wants them to do it lovingly. There are many worthwhile goals to achieve, but not all the ways to achieve them are just. It seems that no matter how many times God tells us how to prosper in ways that benefit the rest of the community as well as ourselves, some of us just have to try to think up ways that will advance our goals even though it will harm someone else. Then if we get caught in it, we protest that our rights and liberties are being violated.

Theft of someone else's time and talents is just as much a form of stealing as taking his material goods, since it is stealing a part of his life with nothing given in return. The most obvious example of this is outright slavery, where the person is held prisoner and forced to work for another without any compensation beyond the bare minimum his exploiter must provide. However, there are more subtle examples practiced in this country which are defended as good business practices.

The "outside contractor" or "part time" employee who is doing the job of a full time employee without getting the full benefit package because he is limited to part time hours although he could work full time hours is being robbed. The employee who is forced to work ever increasing hours or ever faster or at a higher skill level just to retain his job without an increase in pay or benefits is being robbed. The desperate low-skills worker who is paid in cash so the employer can avoid paying Social Security taxes and other taxes which would accrue benefits to the employee is being robbed.

The worker who isn't getting fair raises because the employer is reckoning on a working spouse to make up the difference is being robbed. When employers feel that they can pay a below living wage to workers because they think that financial necessity will force them to accept it, far too many take advantage of the situation. This particular practice is one of the reasons why so many women feel forced to work even though they would prefer to stay home with small children.

When women's liberation came in, it was supposed to stop the exploitation of women, but instead it has led to the economic exploitation of many women (and men) who don't have a financially prosperous enough career to make ends meet on one salary. Now, not only are women still being paid below the salary made by men in comparable jobs, the men are getting less than the previous generations would have gotten for the job based on the employer's expectation that they had to pay a living wage for one wage earner to make ends meet.

It is amazing how many feminists are convinced that Christianity turns women into enslaved doormats, when in fact the opposite is true when Christianity is actually practiced. Sadly, there are people who twist the Scriptures to suit their own good, to the harm of women. God's opinion of the ideal woman is given in the book of Proverbs, chapter 31, verses 10 to 31.

This lady is completely trustworthy and above reproach in her relationships. She is a wife in this passage, but marriage is not mandatory in Christianity. She is dedicated to the good of her family, including the wise stewardship of the family resources. Fortunate indeed is the man who finds a wife of this spiritual caliber.

She is a hard worker and makes money for her family. She is skilled in labor which is very profitable for its time. She isn't a household slave, though. She is the boss over the household workers, assigning them their duties. She gets up early to supervise getting everyone fed and working on that day's tasks.

She knows how to pick good real estate and develop it further for greater profits. She is a good manager of the family businesses that she is running, and her husband doesn't concern himself with them because she is wise enough to handle it herself. She uses the profits she made from previous successful business deals to make more money. She keeps herself fit for work and uses her time wisely so she can maximize her success.

She provides the finest clothing for her household and herself, and she makes sure that their needs are amply met. She even has enough to give to the poor people of her community.

She does such a good job of running the family businesses that her husband can devote time to helping to run their local government. There are examples of women who also participated in local government, like Deborah. She makes the most profitable merchandise possible, and plans wisely with an eye to the future. She is a woman of great personal strength and dignity.

She is wise and teaches her family godly virtues and industry. Her family loves her and praises her for her excellent spirit. This woman relies on godly virtue to run her life, not clever but underhanded manipulation by her wit or beauty. She justly earns the profits of her labor, and her good works testify to her wisdom and beauty of character.

God's opinion of the ideal woman is a person of godly personal strength, dignity, honesty, and industry. She is encouraged to make the most of her personal talents, to develop virtue in herself, and to teach virtue to others. Nowhere does He say that she should be a doormat to anyone, including her husband. She is truly free in Christ.

In families that don't follow God's plan for the family, both sexes are so tied up with work outside the home to survive that their children are shortchanged on the parenting they need to grow up to be emotionally healthy, law abiding, productive adults. Society pays the ultimate cost of that as the culture breaks down into violence and chaos.

Covetousness and greed always lead to destruction. The love of money is the root of all evil. Money itself is only a tool, but it is a necessary one for a society to run smoothly. When one person in a more powerful position chooses to misuse that power to rob another of his just due, he will eventually meet with God's condemnation for his theft. When a whole society takes up the practice, it is ripening for judgment. Sodom was not destroyed just for sexual sins, but because the proud, idle, wealthy people oppressed the poor (Ezekiel 16:49-50). When human life is so little valued that material things matter more than the well being of a fellow human being, it is a sure sign that that people have turned their minds and hearts away from God.

Sometimes it seems as if the wicked are prospering by unjust means, but it is just God's delay to give them a chance to repent, turn from those ways, and make restoration for any harm they have done. God wants us to learn how to live, work, and play with each other fairly by our own agreement and development of self control. Sometimes that takes a certain amount of time to practice our skills and see the results. However, if someone continues to harm others with no sign of stopping, God will eventually intervene with punishments. The punishments may escalate to the ultimate, the person's death and confinement to await eternal punishment as a lost sinner, but they will surely come.

God is generous with His gifts, but only if you ask and ask with right motives. He gladly supplies the needs of His children, even giving to the unsaved people a certain amount of blessings, but He doesn't reward greed or other sinful motives behind requests to Him. He is certainly not about to fund His enemy's plans.

The issue of who is in charge of the universe, including its ownership, is at the heart of the civil war fought between God and Satan. Satan was the highest angel in God's government until he decided to dethrone God and take control and ownership of everything. He tries to teach his followers this same sinful principle of seizing what you want by might, much to the suffering and sorrow of the beings that are victimized by others of greater power and ruthless greed.

God provided peaceful, amply supplied homes for all of his creatures. We live with lack on Earth because of Satan and his followers, both angelic and human, who won't respect the private property of others, even to the point of exploiting them as slaves when possible. God wants to teach everyone why it is so wrong to rob and exploit others, so He is permitting this for a duration of 6000 years decreed after Adam and Eve joined Satan's rebellion against Him.

Satan likes to lie and blame the poverty and famines on Earth on God, when in fact it is Satan himself and those who follow his ways who are the real cause of it. When men have wars that interrupt agricultural production, famines follow. When they ruthlessly exploit the Earth instead of using wise stewardship, they turn cropland into deserts. When the wicked rob the honest workers, they drag their whole society down into poverty through the destruction of what their neighbors are trying to build up.

Satan's ways benefit his followers only briefly, drawing on the blessings built up by those following God's ways, until they have used up the materials available and not enough can be produced to replace them. Whether the people knowingly follow the economic principles explained in the Bible as God's ways, or follow them because they have discovered them by trial and error, God's ways always lead to prosperity and Satan's ways to destruction. As long as people want to follow Satan's ways to build their economies, God allows them to live on what they can produce instead of blessing them as He would if they were living by His ways.

The recent history of Russia is an example of this. They tried to switch over to a capitalist economy to relieve the financial disaster bred from the atheist Communist system, only to have the resources of the nation stolen by mobsters and funnelled into private accounts. Millions of dollars in foreign aid disappeared instead of helping the Russian people get back on their feet economically.

As bad as they had it before the Communist Revolution, they were at least able to feed their people with large harvests of agricultural products. Now they are importing large amounts of food while struggling to get the money to pay for it. They are actually trying to reintroduce Christianity into Russia, acknowledging that forgetting God and His ways has played a large part in the disaster that they brought on themselves with human-invented Communism. It is a lesson that mankind learns and forgets altogether too often.

What about you? Are you relying on your talents and worldly goods to keep you safe and well provided for emotionally and physically? Given how quickly they could be snatched away from you by accident, disaster, or old age, you're making a foolish gamble. The only thing in the universe that doesn't change or corrupt is God Himself. He loves you and wants you to have a loving relationship with Him. Don't let the flimsy things of this world stand between Him and you. Pray this prayer and be saved:

Dear God, I'm sorry for my sins. I want to join your Heavenly family and I submit to King Jesus as my Lord and Savior. I renounce anything to do with Satan, his kingdom, and his ways. Please save me and adopt me as one of Your children. In Jesus' Name, Amen