We speak a lot about wealth generation in SuccessDigest. In fact, it is one of the important reasons why the magazine was established. We believe in wealth creation because of the good that money acquired the right way and spent the right way can accomplish.

 

However, there are a vast majority of people who are uncomfortable with wealth accumulation. To these people, acquiring wealth is like assembling evidence that would damn one to hell on Judgment Day.

 

Since there are teachings in most leading religions, Christianity inclusive, which appear to support this view, many are at odds about what their approach to the subject should be. So confused are many about this subject that, it has prevented them from achieving their true potentials.

 

Let’s examine what wealth is. In today’s world, there is nothing that can replace the part money plays. To give your children the right sort of education; to prevent your family from going hungry and to provide them a decent shelter, you need a regular supply of money.

 

If you or anybody in your family has a serious health problem, doctors at hospitals will hardly listen to any story that, at the end of the day, will not end with a cheque being issued for the drugs they used in trying to make you well.

 

And when you grow old, and you can no longer work, the money that you had set aside while you were younger and working will be what you will fall back on. Without enough of it, your old age will certainly be miserable.

 

Unless, of course, you have children who are working and making enough money to take care of themselves and have some to spare for taking care of you. Anyone who cannot provide for these things will be a very unhappy person indeed. While it is true that there are those who make up their minds to do without these things; that is, they decide not to start a family so that they are not responsible for anybody’s well-being; such people are in the minority.

 

The majority of the rest of the human race tends towards the other way. They crave to raise a family. And they worry about what their old age would be like. These two desires combined, lead them in search of money. You cannot satisfy these needs without having money. That is the basic truth.

 

And it is the need to be financially free; to have money to do these things when the need arises, that leads directly to wealth accumulation. For unless you accumulate money, there is no guarantee that you will always get it to spend when you need it.

 

At this point, we ought to define what wealth is. There are as many definitions as the people defining it. However, wealth, in SuccessDigest‘s definition, is being in a position to pay all your bills and still have some left to take care of your future needs.

 

In other words, when you are constantly in a position to pay for all the services that have been rendered to you by others and are still left with some money for future emergencies, then you are a wealthy man or woman. Or what we describe as

being financially free.

 

Notice that no figures were mentioned. This is because an individual’s taste is different. The key thing is the level of contentment. Once you have reached the point where you are satisfied with what you can provide of those basic things earlier highlighted without feeling you needed more and are unable to have it, then that is your level of wealth.

 

No one can tell you how wealthy you should become. Or say you are not wealthy because he has a dozen cars and 20 houses while you ride a car and have only one house.

 

Having defined what SuccessDigest means when we talk about being wealthy, we should proceed from there to look at why many feel it is wrong to have wealth. As earlier mentioned, most people become skeptical about wealth; have guilt feelings about it just as they do about sex, purely on religious grounds.

 

But the material things that money buys, the services rendered by others which money pays for, just as the children that come forth from procreation, are the creation of God. God made them because He wanted man to use them intelligently.

The Bible says that everything that God created was very good. Genesis 1:31. That is one Biblical statement that no one can argue about.

 

And the Bible never says to have money is wrong. What Apostle Paul told Timothy in 1 Timothy 6:10 is that “the love of money is the root of all evil.” Read that again. It didn’t say money was the root of all evil, but the love of it.

 

The same Apostle Paul was inspired to write as follows in 1 Timothy 6: 17-19: “Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not highminded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to

enjoy (emphasis is mine);

 

“That they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate; laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.” (KJV: the New Open Bible study edition).

 

Did you hear that? Does that sound like Paul saying that wealth is bad? What Apostle Paul taught about wealth, and what the Bible says generally about wealth, will be the subject of this column next month.

 

As the title of one of Paul Zane Pilzer’s books says: God Wants You To Be Rich. There is no doubt about that. But what sort of riches? And for what purpose? I will tell you next month.

 

 

First published in October, 1997.