It is easier to stay out of trouble than to get out of trouble. It was true in Bible times too; when James wrote to the early churches, they had already gotten in trouble, by confusing richness in the Kingdom with richness in the wallet.
They were failing to honor the poor (one version of the Scripture translates this as “you have humiliated the poor”), and they were treating the wealthy like royalty. They allowed the rich to own them — to oppress them, to insult them, to blaspheme — but they continued to bow down to the rich and to their pocketbooks.
They didn’t understand that God’s accounting system doesn’t measure in dollars, or euros, or pesos, or yen. God counts the heart, and by that calculation, those whose pockets are empty often hold the true wealth. The poor may not look like royalty, but they are the ones who will inherit the very Kingdom.
By Nikki Finkelstein-Blair from d365.org