Dear COA Family,
Last week, I shared about one of my ex-colleagues during my sermon. He had resigned from
being a teacher to become a property investor. In his five years of buying and selling property,
he had realised profits of more than a million dollars. And he was unashamedly publicising his
successes on social media and advocating for others to join him on his property investment
journey. According to him, those who do not do so are “cowards” who will regret their inactions.
They will blame their younger selves for not taking the plunge into property investing.
Such an attitude, I have found, is also sadly prevalent among Christians. Quite a few have also
jumped onto the property bandwagon to earn more money than they will ever need. It is not
uncommon nowadays for couples to split their names so as to own multiple properties. And some
even lament that they should have bought more property when they were younger ten years ago!
Now, I am not against earning money through hard work and legitimate means, but there comes a
point in time when the pursuit of wealth becomes all-encompassing and is directly against God’s
will for our lives. This is because there will never be a point of having enough. There are always
more possessions to be gotten. In his famous Sermon on the Mount, Jesus warns against being
preoccupied with the pursuit of wealth in this way:
“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be
devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money”
(Matthew 6:24).
By being overly leveraged in housing loans, we are serving ourselves and not God.
Instead, if God has already provided us with a roof over our head, we should be thankful for God’s
blessing and care for our life. As Paul reminds us:
“But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. Those who want to get rich fall into
temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and
destruction” 1 Timothy 6:8-9.
So, if you are like the people that I have described above, stop what you are doing! Hear the Lord’s
warning and consider your ways carefully:
“Woe to those who join house to house, who add field to field, until there is no more room, and
you are made to dwell alone in the midst of the land” Isaiah 5:8.
Ultimately, the reason for the Holy Spirit’s sombre warning for all of us in this matter is because
this is greed. Greed is idolatry and a serious sin against God. By being discontented, we are
saying that we do not trust God to provide. Instead, we will take risks to accumulate wealth and
spend all of our time, attention and energy on fending for ourselves. We not only will dispense our
energy for what does not satisfy, we will lose out on the eternal and true reward that God has
meant for us to have.
What then is the solution? Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these
things (which we need in our daily lives) will be given to us by God (Matthew 6:33).
God bless,
Revd Ian