The text for our meditation today was the exact one we used yesterday, except that a different translation is employed here. We have employed The Passion Translation (TPT) here to create some special effects. In the previous meditation, we noted that Paul would have the saints avoid sexual immorality and all related vices. There is a third thing to add to the list, that is, greed. Man’s propensity has always been to have more. Ordinarily, there should be no problem with this. After all, God promised to increase us more and more, and our children too. What is reprehensible is when the quest for more violates all known scriptural and moral principles. If the desire for more is to satisfy our lusts, then we are headed in the wrong direction.

What is reprehensible is when the quest for more violates all known scriptural and moral principles. If the desire for more is to satisfy our lusts, then we are headed in the wrong direction.

In one of my recent travels, I ran into an old acquaintance who is also a minister of the gospel. The last I knew of him was that he had a heavy bent teaching financial prosperity. When we reconnected, he told me that he now teaches prosperity by the Spirit. He stressed that he had long gone past what he used to teach, stressing that the Church confused prosperity with materialism. He noted that God gave material prosperity to Christians to fulfil certain purposes, but we started building personal empires. Finally, he argued that it is not true prosperity if our financial increase takes us farther away from God and not closer. He nailed it! Sooner than later, we come to agree with the submission of Jesus that the life of a man does not consist in the abundance of things he possesses. True prosperity is all-round soundness which only God can supply.