Which is more important - moral integrity or material wealth?
Throughout my career as a social worker, I have worked with a number of youths whose only concern seemed to be the bling-bling. Bling-bling to them was the material possessions one accumulates during his or her journey through life. But their preoccupation with the bling-bling has been disconcerting to me. Not because they were in hot pursuit of it, but because they don't understand that everything we do under the sun will one day be meaningless.
The material wealth that we human beings accumulate during our lifetimes will be insignificant once we're buried six feet under the ground. The only thing that we will take with us is our moral integrity, which, in this sense, is defined as Christian faith, obedience and service.
When you consider the current state of our world, though, one has to wonder if the Body of Christ has taken its eye off the prize. After Jesus Christ ascended into Heaven, disciples likes Peter and Paul did everything they could to encourage others to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. Once this conversion was made, the disciples and their converts sold their possessions so that the kingdom of God could be advanced here on Earth.
What I gleam from the experiences of the first Christians is a sense of purpose. They knew that they were placed on this planet to bring glory to God. Bringing glory to God should be our purpose as well, but it's not. We Blacks, haunted by the legacy of past slavery and ongoing oppression, have been trying for centuries to gain equal footing with white Americans. This attempt to keep up with the Joneses is a natural occurrence, resulting from the fact that all human beings have an innate drive to thrive, but should it be at the expense of moral integrity?
What do you think? Is moral integrity more important than material wealth?
I look forward to reading your responses.
Be blessed, family, and continue to be blessings.
The material wealth that we human beings accumulate during our lifetimes will be insignificant once we're buried six feet under the ground. The only thing that we will take with us is our moral integrity, which, in this sense, is defined as Christian faith, obedience and service.
When you consider the current state of our world, though, one has to wonder if the Body of Christ has taken its eye off the prize. After Jesus Christ ascended into Heaven, disciples likes Peter and Paul did everything they could to encourage others to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. Once this conversion was made, the disciples and their converts sold their possessions so that the kingdom of God could be advanced here on Earth.
What I gleam from the experiences of the first Christians is a sense of purpose. They knew that they were placed on this planet to bring glory to God. Bringing glory to God should be our purpose as well, but it's not. We Blacks, haunted by the legacy of past slavery and ongoing oppression, have been trying for centuries to gain equal footing with white Americans. This attempt to keep up with the Joneses is a natural occurrence, resulting from the fact that all human beings have an innate drive to thrive, but should it be at the expense of moral integrity?
What do you think? Is moral integrity more important than material wealth?
I look forward to reading your responses.
Be blessed, family, and continue to be blessings.
Great question!
Sadly, this is not a topic that folks with paper like to discuss in public. In a nutshell...WE LIE!
Here's what I mean: A few weeks back my nephew created/ made-up this story to try to get me to give him money for summer school. Yup, my own flesh & blood tried to con/ hustle me. And he is far from the first...
Rather than get mad or call him out in public...I "pulled his coat tail" (hustler language:) I told my 15 year old nephew that I didn't wake up one day with all the material stuff that I have now. As well, I made him aware that you don't aquire the toys, paper and good life without breaking few eggs.
If you've got paper...you've got dirt. Jesus said that the coins belonged to Ceasar....not God. So anyone with paper has done some work with/for Ceasar. Once we get the paper we want to tell the kids to remain crystal clean. Or worse, we tell the next brother trying to come-up that we have lived this highly moral life to get here. However when everyone in the room has paper...we talk about the dirt we had to do to get in the room.
THINK ABOUT THIS:
If you know there is someone on your job who is more in need of a raise and/or better qualified than you...but you take a pay raise ahead of that person...that is immoral!
Is you pass by a poor/homeless mother on your way to pay your cell phone bill....and don't give her a dime of that money...that is immoral!
Let's no forget...Jesus told the rich man that for him to enter heaven he needed to give away "ALL HIS WORLDLY POSSESSIONS"...not most... ALL.
Let's be careful what we tell the next generation. We owe them truth...The good, the bad and the ugly.
Thoughts?