Today’s bible reading is taken from the book of Isaiah:

Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel:

“I am the Lord your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you in the way you should go.

Isaiah 48:17 (ESV)

We serve a good God, who desires what is good for us, and according to the Prophet Isaiah, ‘teaches us to profit’ (Isaiah 48:17).

However, I don’t think that this means that it is God’s intention for every Christian to become a millionaire or billionaire.

Instead – and as how the NIV version of the bible has translated this verse (‘I am the LORD your God, who teaches you what is best for you, who directs you in the way you should go’) – it is God’s intention that we receive what is best for us individually, according to the path of life that he leads us to take.

Indeed, when reading Isaiah 48:17, we need to keep an eye on verses 18 and 19, and to consider them together in context:

“Oh that you had paid attention to my commandments!

Then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea; your offspring would have been like the sand, and your descendants like its grains; their name would never be cut off or destroyed from before me.”

Isaiah 48:18-19 (ESV)

In life, we all have different gifts and abilities, and some people handle money well, while others don’t.

Some people are in a business or line of work that pays well, while others aren’t.

You see, when God says that He teaches us to profit (verse 17), it must go together with being able to keep God’s commandments, having peace, and being able to conduct oneself righteously before others (verse 18).

Some people make a lot of money through their business; yet, they have no peace of mind because they constantly need to make moral compromises in order to keep making the money that they do.

I don’t see making money this way as how God had intended for our lives, and I recommend that people in this situation seek God and reconsider the direction that their life is going.

Heavenly Father, I pray for my brothers and sisters who are reading this. We acknowledge that You are a good God who teaches us to profit but who also leads us in the way we should go. Some of us may be feeling a lack of peace in spite of being in a business or career that pays well, and I ask that You redirect us, so that we may be able to take a path where we do not need to compromise morally and still be able to meet our needs. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.