Through His Poverty

It is hard to imagine that the son of a slave would be offered a job at $100,000 a year.  It is even more incredible that the same man would turn down the offer, but that is exactly what George Washington Carver did.  Inventor Thomas Edison made the offer.  Henry Ford also tried to persuade Carver to work for the Ford Motor Company, but Carver was unimpressed with the offers of money and prestige.

He chose rather to live in the South, living in relative poverty, wearing the same suit for forty years.  He had earlier given up a promising position at Iowa State University in order to work with Booker T. Washington in his struggling Tuskegee Institute.

When friends argued that he could help his people if he had all that money, Carver replied, “If I had all that money, I might FORGET about my people.”  On his tombstone are carved the following words:

“He could have added fortune to fame, but caring for neither, he found happiness and honor in being helpful to the world.” *

There is Another who gave up much more in order to bless the world…

“For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,
that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor,
that you through His poverty might become rich.”
– 2 Corinthians 8:9

Jesus, “being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a “SERVANT”, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death– even death on a cross!” (Philippians 2:6-8).

Jesus died on the cross for the sins of the world (1 John 2:2) because sin separates man from God (Isaiah 59:1-2) and condemns man to eternal destruction (Matthew 7:13-14).  Jesus became “poor” – setting aside the glories of heaven and becoming a man, a servant, and the sacrifice for sin – so that WE might become RICH with spiritual blessings: the forgiveness of sins and the hope of eternal life (Ephesians 1:7; Titus 1:2).

Jesus will make us “rich” with these spiritual blessings if we will submit to Him on His terms: placing our faith and trust in Him (Acts 16:30-31), turning from sin in repentance (Acts 17:30-31), confessing Him before men (Romans 10:9-10), and being baptized in His name for the forgiveness of our sins (Acts 2:38).

Then, if we will continue to “walk in the light” of His Word… He will continue to cleanse us from our sins and lead us “into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade, reserved in heaven” for the faithful child of God (1 Peter 1:4).

Through His poverty, YOU can be freed from the poverty of sin and become rich with eternal, spiritual blessings –IF- you will submit your life to Jesus.

Won’t YOU?

David A. Sargent