Be True

DEVOTION
PROVERBS
BE TRUE
Prov 13:7
7 One man pretends to be rich, yet has nothing;
another pretends to be poor, yet has great wealth.
NIV
There are two ways in which I see this saying as it applies to life. If I am wanted to make something out of this word pretend it would be easy to simply say people put forth false fronts for the benefit of want their want others to think of them. If I were poor, well I should say of merger means, for I do not think I have ever been poor. I have been broke a few times, but I believe poor is a state of mind rather than of finance. Yet at the same time if I being of somewhat merger income, were to pretend that I made a lot of money and lived way beyond my means just to impress others I would be in sad shape. The fact that I have what I have is not a matter of my income, but a matter of the hand of God. I believe I testify enough that God has bestowed much of my possessions upon me. People may think I am rich, but I think I am clear enough about the provisions of God. I also think that there are those believers who do have a great deal of wealth and put on the false front of being poorer than they are to protect themselves from jealousy or from others looking for help from them. They may well have plenty, but desire to keep it all as well. Now, that is all well and good about the rich and poor, in the world’s financial aspects of life. But I also think that God is not so much concerned about the world’s view of things and wants his people to see his spiritual direction here. If I am rich and yet am not rich toward God I have nothing. The Hebrew word here is to make one self to be rich, to accumulate to grow and simply to be destitute. I am not seeing the pretend in the text, although I am certain the scholars have a better understanding of the original language then I do. Yet I see that if want I do have I am liberal with it to benefit the Kingdom of God and that deceases the amount I have to live well, I am still very rich for I have an eternal inheritance I will not have room enough to contain. But if on the other hand I have an abundance of wealth and store it up for my own life and am not rich toward God, in actually I have nothing at all. I would not gain any eternal inheritance. That could apply to money as well as to time and talent. All I am, all I have, all I will ever be and ever have is all due to the hand of God and all belongs to him anyway. I may not be really poor, and I know I am not really rich either, but I am want I am and it is all from him. No pretending about either is by far the way God wants it. It is not about me, but about him. Just be true.