Then Jesus said to his disciples, “I tell you the truth, it is very hard for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. I’ll say it again—it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God!”
Matthew 19:23-24 – https://www.biblegateway.com/passage?search=Matthew%2019:23-24&version=NLT

How is it possible that wealth, that great honour, the outward indicator of God’s favour, the marker of a life lived to His great honour – according to the preacher – how is it that wealth creates the biggest obstacle to the Kingdom of Heaven? I’ve thought about this a lot as I interact with some people whom our society deems wealthy. I particularly consider this thought when I see the type who look at the poor with philanthropic scorn. You know whom I mean; the silver spoon bootstrap wealthy who have achieved and acquired because of their hard work. Those guys, the ones who deign to give a handout to the stragglers, and then discuss the great weight that they drag behind them, as a result of the paucity of progress among the entitled, the lazy, the foolish, the unmotivated.

Friend, having clearly seen their hump, I was happy to be that verbal sledge hammer which pounded them through the eye of the proverbial needle to enlightenment and glory. For it is indeed noble work to prod sagging souls along on their way to the Kingdom. Is it not?

It is not.

“Wealthy?” The Spirit of God asked me. “Who is wealthy? And through which eyes, daughter, have you been assessing the wealthy?” It was quiet, and as far as I was aware, there was no one else with me. I had invited no One. So I turned abruptly to see who had interrupted my meditative soliloquy. He quickly held me still. I wondered why He would prevent me from seeing whom He was. And then gently, He held a mirror up to my eyes:
The disciples were astounded. “Then who in the world can be saved?” they asked. Jesus looked at them intently and said, “Humanly speaking, it is impossible. But with God everything is possible.”
Matthew 19:25-26 – https://www.biblegateway.com/passage?search=Matthew%2019:25-26&version=NLT

I could see then that He hadn’t been trying to hide. He was trying to preserve my sight. For had I moved an inch, drawn away from Him, I would have surely driven the massive protruding beam more deeply into my eye.

“Who is rich?” I asked. The better question, He asked me; “Who is not?” Which of us is not rich? Which of us have not been gifted with Love. We have however been gifted with varying aspects of love. We all possess a skill that only we can uniquely execute. This is but a component of love. A gift given for the greater good. None have been excluded. All have been gifted. But like the rich young ruler, who had earlier walked away unfulfilled from his conversation with Jesus, we fail to correctly identify our most valuable asset, and we overestimate the value of the unique gifts that we believe fill our lives with invaluable purpose.

It seems that we then become filled with a sort of illusory superiority, in line with the Dunning-Kruger effect. We do not recognize that we are deficient in love, because we conflate our knowledge of love with the skill that we offer the world. Our gifts become our humps, our inflated egos. We wonder why others just do not easily carry and supply great stores of our gift. We fail to recognize that our gifts are our contribution to the community of humanity. We do not see that together we provide a complete gift of love. And so with humps and beam-obstructed eyes we trample each other as we journey to myriad false kingdoms.

Our very little children journey more successfully. They walk together in love. They communicate openly. They help each other; and they do this fairly well until we, with our humps and beams, guide them away from love.

Grace to Grace – Hillsong How grateful we become when we recognize that our Father guides us as gently as the psalmist describes in Psalm 103:8, with “compassionate and merciful…unfailing love” that is unbreakable even in death (Romans 38:8). We begin to allow Him to clear our eyes. We begin to allow Him to teach us what it is to be truly rich; and then knowing love, we walk more easily into His Kingdom of Love, “on Earth as it is in Heaven”, together.