Don't put it in the wrong bank

 
One day a man came to Jesus complaining that his brother wouldn’t share the family inheritance. I don’t know if he got what he was asking for, but he did get something far better. He learned that “true life is not determined by what a person has” (Luke 12:15). To drive home this point, Jesus told him the parable of the rich fool. You will remember how the rich man was wondering how best to handle a crop so large that his barns (note the plural) couldn’t hold it all.  He settled on “bigger barns” – but Jesus called him a “fool” (the Greek aphron means “ignorant, lacking in good judgment”).  That was not because of his decision to build, but because that very night would be his last and everything he had “stashed away for himself” would go to someone else. Then Jesus brought it all into focus, pointing out that this is how it will be for those who “store up treasure for themselves instead of becoming rich toward God” (v. 21).
       One would hope that a bumper crop would bring real pleasure to the farmer and gratitude for the One who had blessed him so richly, but it doesn’t seem to work out that way. Greed is never satisfied. Socrates said, “He who is not content with what he has, would not be content with what he would like to have.” The word is “insatiable” — you can’t get enough because there is no enough, it grows faster than you can get it.
       No one would suggest that greed is a good thing, but neither, in popular usage, is it considered all that bad. Capitalism, for example, is usually regarded as “greed under control.” In a business venture the desire to have more has a positive (economic) result, but it has to be under some restraint, not because culture regards it as bad, but because too much of it leads to its collapse under its own weight. So goes the normal response. 
       But what does scripture say about greed? Interestingly enough, as Paul is listing those things that belong to the old nature, greed is right there as one of them. But look in Col. 3:5 at those qualities with which it is joined — “sexual immorality, moral corruption, uncontrolled passion (and) greed.” Those are strange bedfellows! It is not uncommon for a person guilty of any of the first three to be moved out of the local church, but for “greed?” Ever heard a rousing sermon on the vile and contemptible nature of greed? We seem to treat it as a sort of “Christian sin,” bad, but then, we all have our faults.
       Back to our text, Jesus is saying that instead of storing up treasure here on earth, the wise believer will choose to become “rich toward God” (p. 138). That is where one’s inheritance will be used to promote those things dear to the heart of God rather than the selfish, and shall I say “greedy,” desires of the old nature. Life is short, to say the least, and there is so little time to accomplish what we were intended to accomplish. One thing is for sure and that is using time to hoard up that which will stay in time is a terribly sorry alternative to becoming “rich toward God.” So says our Lord, Jesus.