Real Wealth

Do not wear yourself out to get rich; do not trust your own cleverness. Cast but a glance at riches, and they are gone, for they will surely sprout wings and fly off to the sky like an eagle. Proverbs 23:4-5 NIV

What do you do with a trillion dollars? I don’t have the foggiest idea, but Elon Musk will know soon. Musk, already one of the richest men in the world, is set to become the first official Trillionaire when SpaceX goes public. A trillion dollars is 1 followed by 12 zeros! I have the first one, just not the rest. Musk’s current net worth exceeds Taiwan’s annual economic output, according to Barron’s.

Reaching the trillion-dollar mark in 2026 seems fitting, given that John D. Rockefeller became the world’s first billionaire on September 29, 1916. Now there are over 3,000 billionaires globally and 60 million millionaires, with 24 million in the United States (Visual Capitalist). “Modern entrepreneurs have accumulated the highest recorded absolute net worths in history” (Oxfam’s Global Wealth Analysis).

We may not rank among the wealthiest, like Warren Buffett, but how do we compare with Rockefeller? Buffett would say that the vast majority of us are better off than Rockefeller. “So how could the poorest 2% possibly ‘live better’ than that? Today you can get better medicine, better education, better entertainment, better transportation—you can do everything better than he could…It’s astounding.” (Jeannine Mancini)

I think we can all agree that there have been many changes in the 100 years since the world crowned its first billionaire. We can get anywhere in the world within a day’s travel, communicate with someone on the other side of the planet in a microsecond, and even have our food delivered to our front door. Yet in all these changes, Dr. Balaji Viswanathan makes a poignant observation, “Every generation believes they are the greatest, with the past too outdated and the future too confused. Three hundred years ago, historians said we had arrived in the “modern” era and were different from all the ‘barbarians’ and ‘medieval’ people. We make the same mistakes and believe in the same myths.”

“There has never been a human in history who had so much gold and silver at his fingertips that it was as common as pebbles!” Who would you guess was the richest man in the world: Rockefeller, Buffett, Gates, Bezos, Zuckerberg, the Walton family, or Musk? How about Solomon! Scholars and economic historians estimate Solomon’s wealth at well over two trillion dollars in today’s dollars.

“The daily food requirements for Solomon’s palace were 150 bushels of choice flour and 300 bushels of meal; also 10 oxen from the fattening pens, 20 pasture-fed cattle, 100 sheep or goats, as well as deer, gazelles, roe deer, and choice poultry… Solomon had 4,000 stalls for his chariot horses, and he had 12,000 horses.” I Kings 4:22-23,26

Solomon definitely had a nice lifestyle. However, even better than his wealth was his wisdom. “God gave Solomon wisdom and very great insight, and a breadth of understanding as measureless as the sand on the seashore.” (I Kings 4:29)

Solomon made some critical mistakes in life that affected his legacy and generations to come. Perhaps it was from these mistakes that he had important words to pass on to us, especially to the millionaires and billionaires of this world. Solomon reminds us that, “Whoever loves money never has enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income. This too is meaningless. As goods increase, so do those who consume them. And what benefit are they to the owners except to feast their eyes on them? The sleep of a laborer is sweet, whether they eat little or much, but as for the rich, their abundance permits them no sleep.” (Ecclesiastes 5:10-12)

Warren Buffett observed that wealth isn’t the key to fulfillment. It’s about passion, purpose, and perspective. Millard Fuller came to that understanding. By 29, he had it all, including a sprawling house, a second home, land, and bank accounts, but not purpose. In the early 1960s, the world considered him a success story, but what they couldn’t see was the inside story. Consumed with making another dollar and closing the next deal, he was on the verge of losing the love of his life, Linda. When he asked her what it would take to save their marriage, she said “all of it”. The wealth wasn’t a reward; it was a wall between them.

They decided to get rid of everything. They would make themselves poor by choice, moving to Koinonia Farm, a Christian community near Americus, Georgia, where people were seeking practical ways to apply Christ’s teachings. This sparked a vision to help others secure decent, affordable housing, and from that dream grew Habitat for Humanity. Today, the organization is active in all 50 states and across 70 countries. “He wasn’t selling a product anymore. He was selling the radical idea that the dignity of a dry, safe home was not a luxury; it was something owed to every human being who was willing to work for it alongside their neighbor.”

“The money you have in your wallet has no intrinsic value; it is worth what the Government says it is worth. It is essentially morally neutral and powerless. The Devil uses money to seduce us, and that is when it can become powerfully negative. He wants you to fall in love with it so that you will become a slave to money rather than its master. The flip side is that when we use money as a tool to invest in God’s kingdom, money becomes a powerful instrument of good. (Wealth with Purpose)”

The challenge of wealth, money, and possessions is addressed in more than 2,300 verses in the Bible. Jesus taught that money is ultimately a heart issue that affects everything you do. “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. 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 6:21,24

Letting God control everything is worth more than all the riches in the world. A dollar in God’s hand will do more than a million in a fool’s hand. “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.” Phil 4:11

God is great!