They say that money won’t make you happy. But if I had the resources, I wouldn’t mind experimenting.

The prophet Jeremiah snuck in a cheeky comment about wealth that caught my attention. He was addressing a king who was building an excessive palace at the expense of his people, and he said, “Does it make you a king to have more and more cedar?” (Jeremiah 22:15).

No, it doesn’t make you a king to have more and more cedar. Nor does it make you a better king. It just makes you a king . . . with a lot of cedar.

What was obvious in Jeremiah’s eyes might be less obvious in your life, but the same principle must be applied:

The quantity of what you have does not improve the quality of who you are.

In fact, the quantity of what you have merely amplifies the quality of who you are. Money doesn’t give you happiness—at best it distracts you from unhappiness. Great wealth doesn’t give you security—it only gives you something new to worry about.

Maybe what you need to hear today is that neither your purpose nor your value is determined by what you have. Your value was determined at Christ’s cross, and your purpose was unleashed in his empty tomb. It doesn’t really matter whether you are assigned poverty or riches. Who you are in Christ is what enables you to reflect Christ-like love in this world.