We spend our lives chasing financial security, believing that just a little more money will finally make us happy. But what happens when the goalposts keep moving? Jesus offers a different understanding of wealth—and an invitation to discover the freedom of enough.
When I was a kid growing up in Lakeland, Florida, I remember going out to dinner one evening with my extended family at a local restaurant. My aunts and uncles were there, along with a couple of cousins visiting from out of town. All the kids ended up sitting together at our own table. This was before smartphones and tablets, so we had to entertain ourselves while we waited for our food.
The restaurant had paper placemats covered with local business advertisements. My oldest cousin showed us how to fold a placemat into a small triangle, and then we played a game in which we treated the triangle like a football and flicked it toward the person on the other side of the table. That person held up two fingers like goalposts at the end of a football field, and we tried to kick the football through the goalposts.
But we quickly found a way to make the game much more entertaining. As someone flicked the paper football, the person holding up the goalposts moved their fingers out of the way, and the football sailed right past them. Of course, when it was your turn to kick, you wanted the goalposts to stay exactly where they were. But when someone else was kicking, moving them at the last second was half the fun.
The Moving Goalposts
Moving the goalposts can be fun when you’re playing a game at the dinner table, but it’s frustrating in real life.
Think about how people often approach money. When we’re young and just starting out, we imagine how wonderful life would be if we could earn a certain salary. We tell ourselves that if we could earn that much, we’d finally be comfortable. We wouldn’t have to worry so much about paying the bills, and maybe we’d even have a little left over to enjoy life.
But then something interesting happens. We reach that income level, and before long, the goalposts move. We start thinking about a nicer house, a better car, or how much more we need to save for retirement. What once seemed like plenty now feels barely enough. We end up chasing a new financial goal, convinced that once we reach it, we’ll finally feel secure.
Psychologists and economists have studied this phenomenon for years. One concept that helps explain it is hedonic adaptation. The basic idea is that we tend to get used to improvements in our circumstances. What once seemed extraordinary eventually becomes normal, and the excitement or satisfaction we feel begins to fade. Researchers have also found that as people’s incomes rise, so do their financial aspirations. The amount of money they believe they need to be satisfied keeps increasing.
And it’s not just about what we have. It’s also about what others have. We compare ourselves with our neighbors, coworkers, and the people we see on social media. When someone else gets a bigger house or takes a nicer vacation, what we have suddenly doesn’t seem as satisfying as it did before. Even when our financial circumstances improve, our expectations can rise right along with them.
Now, I want to be careful here because I’m not suggesting that money doesn’t matter. It does. If you can’t afford groceries, pay your bills, or provide for your family, having more money can make a big difference in your quality of life. Everyone wants financial stability. But even when we have more than enough to live comfortably, we can find ourselves caught in a cycle of always wanting just a little more.
This raises an important question: How do we know when we have enough?
If the goalposts keep moving every time we get a little closer to our financial targets, how will we ever know when to stop worrying about getting more and start enjoying the life we already have?
That’s one of the questions I’m exploring in a five-part series, True Wealth: The Life Money Can’t Buy. Inspired by Sahil Bloom’s book The 5 Types of Wealth, the series challenges our culture’s tendency to define success primarily by financial terms. A genuinely wealthy life involves more than money. It also includes the quality of our relationships, how we spend our time, our spiritual health, and our physical well-being.
Scripture invites us to rethink what makes a life truly rich, and one of Jesus’ most memorable parables offers an important lesson about money, happiness, and security.
The Illusion of Financial Security
In Luke 12:13–21, someone in the crowd interrupts Jesus while he’s teaching. The man says, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” Apparently, a family dispute over how to divide their inheritance has come up, and the man wants Jesus to settle it.
We don’t know whether his complaint was justified, but Jesus uses the occasion to address something deeper. He tells the crowd:
“Watch out! Guard yourself against all kinds of greed. After all, one’s life isn’t determined by one’s possessions, even when someone is very wealthy.” (Luke 12:15, CEB)
Notice that Jesus doesn’t say money is evil or that having possessions is wrong. Rather, he warns against the vice of greed, the insatiable desire to accumulate more. Then he makes a remarkable claim: Our possessions don’t determine our lives, no matter how much we have. The amount of money in our bank accounts cannot tell us how rich our lives really are.
To illustrate his point, Jesus tells a story about a wealthy farmer whose land yields an unusually abundant harvest. The harvest is so large that he doesn’t have enough room to store everything. So he decides to tear down his barns and build bigger ones. Once he’s stored everything, he tells himself he’ll finally be able to relax, enjoy life, and stop worrying about the future.
At first glance, that doesn’t sound particularly foolish. The man has been successful and is making plans to manage his resources. Most financial advisors would likely applaud his decision to save for the future rather than squander everything. So why does Jesus call him a fool?
I think the answer lies in how the farmer talks about his wealth.
“I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones. That’s where I’ll store all my grain and goods. I’ll say to myself, You have stored up plenty of goods, enough for several years. Take it easy! Eat, drink, and enjoy yourself.” (Luke 12:18–19)
Notice the self-referential language. My barns. My grain. My goods. Everything centers on what he owns and what he plans to do with it. He doesn’t mention God or express gratitude; he shows no concern for the workers on his land; he doesn’t think to share his abundance with people in need. His entire vision of the future centers on his own comfort and security.
And that’s where the problem lies. The farmer has come to believe three things: that he alone has produced this wealth, that it belongs exclusively to him, and that he can rely on it to secure his future.
But none of this is true, as we begin to see in God’s response to the farmer’s selfish hoarding: “Fool, tonight you will die. Now who will get the things you have prepared for yourself?” (Luke 12:20).
Jesus doesn’t say that God strikes the farmer dead for being wealthy. Instead, he focuses on the farmer who takes all the credit for the good things in his life, assumes exclusive ownership without a moral obligation to share, and believes his wealth gives him enough power to create and secure his own future.
He has enough grain stored away to last for years, but it never occurs to him that he might not be alive tomorrow to enjoy any of it.
The way he talks about money reveals how he thinks about and relates to it: I earned it all by myself. It all belongs to me. I can do whatever I want with it, and because I have so much, I don’t need anyone, including God, to secure my life.
But again, none of this is true.
Everything he has is a gift from God. Everything he has belongs to God and is entrusted to him as a steward. God has something to say about how he uses it, and no amount of wealth can secure his future.
The last point is particularly important. Money can buy a beautiful house, but it can’t guarantee a happy home. It can provide good medical care, but it cannot guarantee unfailing health. It can provide entertainment in retirement, but it cannot guarantee how many years we’ll have to enjoy it.
Money matters, but when we make it the foundation of our happiness and security, we build our lives on something that ultimately cannot sustain us.
What Does It Mean to Be Rich Toward God?
Jesus ends the parable with these words:
“This is the way it will be for those who hoard things for themselves and aren’t rich toward God” (Luke 12:21).
The phrase “rich toward God” is key to understanding what Jesus wants us to learn. The farmer’s problem wasn’t simply that he had accumulated great wealth. Rather, he had a self-centered view of wealth that had nothing to do with his relationship with God, and he organized his entire life around increasing and protecting it. His possessions had become his security and the measure of his success.
But what does it mean to be rich toward God?
Jesus explains this a few verses later in Luke 12:31. After telling his disciples not to worry about what they’ll eat, drink, or wear, he reminds them that God knows what they need and calls them to seek God’s kingdom above all else, rather than letting anxiety over material possessions dominate their lives.
In other words, Jesus calls his disciples to make his way of life, shaped by God’s love, justice, and compassion, their highest priority, trusting that God will take care of them. This is what it means to be rich toward God and free from the slavery that comes with greed.
Then, in verse 33, Jesus says something that would have shocked everyone:
“Sell your possessions and give to those in need. Make for yourselves wallets that don’t wear out—a treasure in heaven that never runs out.” (Luke 12:33)
With this radical statement, Jesus disrupts their assumptions about money and creates an opportunity for them to remember the fundamental truths about wealth in their own faith tradition: (1) God is the giver of all good gifts. (2) These gifts belong to God, and we hold them in trust as stewards. (3) What we have is not merely for our enjoyment but is meant to be shared to meet the needs of others. (4) Money can help us meet our basic needs, but it can never secure our lives or our future.
Instead of organizing our lives around accumulating more for ourselves, Jesus invites us to use what we have to participate in God’s work of love, justice, and compassion.
The problem with the rich farmer isn’t that his barns are full; it’s that his imagination is too small.
He could envision a future filled with comfort and possessions for himself, but he couldn’t imagine using his abundance to make life better for anyone else.
And this is where we get the answer to the question we started with: When do we know when we have enough?
The answer isn’t in having a particular amount of money in the bank, but in changing how we think about and relate to money. It’s in refusing to treat it as the ultimate source of our security and recognizing it as a resource God has entrusted to us, not only for our needs but also to help others.
When our relationship with money shifts this way, we are freed from greed and begin to discover what it means to have enough, empowering us to enjoy the life we already have.
This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t save for retirement, plan for emergencies, or provide for our families. Those are important responsibilities. But it does mean our financial decisions should reflect more than our desire for personal comfort, entertainment, and security.
Earn All You Can. Save All You Can. Give All You Can.
John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement, gave us three simple rules for money: Earn all you can, save all you can, and give all you can.
He believed that earning money through honest work and managing it responsibly were good things. But he also believed that wealth’s ultimate purpose wasn’t simply to accumulate more. We should use it to meet our own needs—and the needs of others, especially the poor.
For Wesley, generosity wasn’t something to be practiced only after a person had accumulated enough money to feel completely secure. It was part of living faithfully with whatever resources God had entrusted to us.
And that’s an important distinction because if we wait until we feel we have more than enough before we become generous, we may spend our entire lives fearfully hoarding possessions and miss the virtue and joy of giving.
Remember those moving goalposts? Every time we get a little closer to what we think will finally be enough, our expectations can change.
But generosity interrupts that cycle.
When we share what we have with others, we’re reminded that money isn’t simply something to accumulate and protect. It’s something we can use to express love and make a difference in the world.
Two Practices for Discovering Enough
We can do two things today to help us use our wealth in ways that honor God.
First, practice gratitude. Take a few minutes to reflect on the blessings you already have, rather than focusing on what you don’t have or still hope to get. Give thanks for the people who love you, the opportunities you’ve been given, and the ways God has provided for you.
Second, practice intentional generosity. Find one way to share what you have. It might involve giving money to someone in need, supporting a ministry in your church that you care about, or sharing something you have with someone who could use it. The amount matters far less than opening your hands and recognizing that what you have can become a blessing to others.
And as you do, remember the paper football game. It was fun to move the goalposts just as someone was about to score. But when it comes to money, constantly moving the goalposts can keep us from ever feeling satisfied with what we have.
Jesus invites us to stop playing that game. He reminds us that our lives are worth more than our possessions and that true wealth isn’t found in how much we can accumulate for ourselves, but in how we use our wealth to help others.
We begin to discover what is enough when money stops being the source of our security and becomes a means of loving God and our neighbors.
And that’s the freedom Jesus wants us to experience: not a life without financial responsibilities or concerns, but one no longer defined by the endless pursuit of more. A life in which we can receive what we have with gratitude, use it wisely, share it generously, and trust that our deepest security rests not in what we possess but in the God who loves us.
Continue the Journey
📖 What Christians Do: Living Like Jesus in a Divided World
What if Christianity were known less by what Christians argue about and more by how we live?
My new book, What Christians Do, explores six practices rooted in Jesus’ life and teachings that can help us become more humble, compassionate, courageous, just, and loving—especially in a divided world.
Coming October 6, 2026, from Abingdon Press.
Learn More & Preorder What Christians Do
✉️ Get My Free 5-Day Devotional
Want to go deeper? Subscribe to receive my free 5-Day Devotional, along with future articles and reflections on faith, spiritual formation, and learning to live more like Jesus.
Subscribe & Get the Free Devotional
