The American entrepreneur... - All The Good Seed Daily Devotionals for 2024

Command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty, nor to trust in uncertain riches but in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy. Let them do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to give…
1 Timothy 6:17–18

The American entrepreneur John Pierpont Morgan (1837–1913) is considered the most influential banker of his time. With the bank he founded he had acquired a huge fortune, primarily through the takeover and reorganisation of run-down railway lines. On the other hand, he was known to be fundamentally opposed to speculative transactions.

When Morgan died on March 31, 1913, he left a will with 37 articles. This was printed in full in the New York Times three weeks later. The most important is in Article 1: “I commit my soul into the hands of my Saviour in full confidence that, having redeemed it and washed it in his most precious blood, he will present it faultless before the throne of my heavenly Father; and I entreat my children to maintain and defend, at all hazard, and at any cost of personal sacrifice, the blessed doctrine of the ‘complete atonement’ for sin through the blood of Jesus Christ, once offered, and through that alone.”

Morgan had not placed his hope in the ‘uncertainty of riches’, but in God and the atoning death of His Son. “You were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot” (1 Peter 1:18–19).

O Lamb of God, who bore for me
Sin’s guilt and curse and power;
Upon the cross you set me free –
Cried, ‘Done!’ in that dark hour.
Freely translated from Hedwig von Redern (1866–1935)


Today’s reading: 2 Kings 2:1-14 · John 16:12-24 Pierpont Morgan (1837–1913) is considered the most influential banker of his time. With the bank he founded he had acquired a huge fortune, primarily through the takeover and reorganisation of run-down railway lines. On the other hand, he was known to be fundamentally opposed to speculative transactions.

When Morgan died on March 31, 1913, he left a will with 37 articles. This was printed in full in the New York Times three weeks later. The most important is in Article 1: “I commit my soul into the hands of my Saviour in full confidence that, having redeemed it and washed it in his most precious blood, he will present it faultless before the throne of my heavenly Father; and I entreat my children to maintain and defend, at all hazard, and at any cost of personal sacrifice, the blessed doctrine of the ‘complete atonement’ for sin through the blood of Jesus Christ, once offered, and through that alone.”

Morgan had not placed his hope in the ‘uncertainty of riches’, but in God and the atoning death of His Son. “You were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot” (1 Peter 1:18–19).

O Lamb of God, who bore for me
Sin’s guilt and curse and power;
Upon the cross you set me free –
Cried, ‘Done!’ in that dark hour.
Freely translated from Hedwig von Redern (1866–1935)

Today’s reading: 2 Kings 2:1-14 · John 16:12-24