I recently found an app for my phone that contains quotes, hundreds if not thousands of quotes. One of them comes from Henry Ford. He states, “If money is your hope for independence you will never have it. The only real security that a man will have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience, and ability.”
I agree with him when he states that we will not have independence when our hope is in money. However, when he states that our only real security is a reserve of knowledge, experience and ability, I would have to disagree. The real security does not lie in what we know or can do. It lies in a personal relationship with Jesus. While having knowledge, experience and abilities will help us in life, those can be gone in an instant whether they become outdated or something happens that changes what we know or can do. Even back in Bible times this was a reality. Jesus spoke these words as recorded in the Gospel of Luke:
15 And He said to them, “Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses.”
16 Then He spoke a parable to them, saying: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully.
17 And he thought within himself, saying, ‘What shall I do, since I have no room to store my crops?’
18 So he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there I will store all my crops and my goods.
19 And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry.” ‘
20 But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?’
21 So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.”
22 Then He said to His disciples, “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; nor about the body, what you will put on.
23 Life is more than food, and the body is more than clothing.
24 Consider the ravens, for they neither sow nor reap, which have neither storehouse nor barn; and God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds?
25 And which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?
26 If you then are not able to do the least, why are you anxious for the rest?
27 Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
28 If then God so clothes the grass, which today is in the field and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will He clothe you, O you of little faith?
29 And do not seek what you should eat or what you should drink, nor have an anxious mind.
30 For all these things the nations of the world seek after, and your Father knows that you need these things.
31 But seek the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added to you.
Luke 12:15-31 (NKJV)
The passage shows a guy who had means, knowledge, ability, and experience, yet it was all for nothing without God. Since Jesus was the son of God, the visible incarnation of an invisible God, to have a relationship with Him is to have a relationship with God.