Following the people who obtained the promise through faith and patience is good while learning from them how they followed Christ. According to this pattern, as building blocks, we conform not to the world but abound and also suffer need.
The man who was rich in a Bible passage was asked to sell all and give the money to the poor and follow Jesus so that he might be perfect and have treasure in heaven, but he went away because he had great wealth.
Also, there was another man like us who gave his only son to God as a sacrifice in obedience – that man Abraham. He was rich in material resources but lacked a child. He sought for a child and he obtained a son from the Lord, according to his faith.
Afterward, God demanded that he offer the son as a sacrifice. He obeyed and gave him unto God. He became ‘poor’ in that regard. He received also the promise which comes by faith: therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace, (Rom 4:16a). He believed God and it was accounted unto him for righteousness, according to Word. Did he know how to be abased and how to abound?
Consider Christ also, who was rich but became poor, so that through his poverty we might be rich, according to the Gospel. So it is particularly clear that we should not seek the mammon or riches of this world in which some trust (Ps 49:6) but loose their souls in the end; neither should we also have all the faith that can move mountains only and at the last day not be accepted by God. But we should strive to enter through the narrow gate, and must know how to be abased and how to abound, Phil 4:12.
For the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field, which a man found and hid again; and from joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Matt 13:44. He sells all and buys the field. Let us remember that we have a treasure far exceeding ‘all’ that we can have.
Wherefore whether we make wealth or work towards faith, let us know how we can get along and live humbly [in difficult times] and how to enjoy abundance and live in prosperity (Phil 4:12); and how to scatter and yet increase (Prov 11:24); knowing that we are by faith the children of Abraham, who offered his only son to God and afterward received a treasurable reward.