What is our proper response when we get wisdom, strength, or material riches?
The natural response is to become prideful. To believe we are being rewarded solely for our greatness and solely for our benefit. But God warns against this. If we satisfy ourselves in earthly treasures, we miss an infinitely greater opportunity. We settle for the superficial treasure and disqualify ourselves from something more.
No matter what reward we might gain on this earth, it is minuscule compared to gaining an understanding of who the Lord is. Not just that He exists. But to really know Him. To know His character. To know intimately His kindness, justice, and righteousness. To sit and be with Him. There is nothing else like it.
Mountaintop experiences and seasons of earthly prosperity are terrains where it’s easy to miss the greatest opportunity of life – to know God by faith. On the mountain we tend to become satisfied with all we see; the very same temptation Satan used on Jesus in the wilderness. But vast riches are gained when we seek through the eyes of faith the greater treasure that lies in what is not visible, and know that God is the Lord.
Only there will we find our purpose and our rest.
“This is what the Lord says: ‘Let not the wise boast of their wisdom or the strong boast of their strength or the rich boast of their riches, but let the one who boasts boast about this: that they have the understanding to know me, that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight,’ declares the Lord.”
– Jeremiah 9:23-24