God and Money

Hello: Our text for today is:  Matthew 6:24 “No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.” (NIV)

This is a familiar text.  We often hear it in our church services or bible studies.  There is something so interesting about this text.  Jesus teaches that you cannot serve both God and money.  Isn’t it amazing that he did not say that you cannot serve both God and the devil?  I love this text because it shows you how powerful a stronghold money can be in our lives.  Money is such a powerful stronghold that Jesus puts it on the same level as God in terms of our worship and devotion and what we commit to.   Think about it, most of us will never struggle with being worshipers of Satan especially as Christians, but if we be honest, many of us will have to admit that sometimes we have made “money” our God.  When we worry and seek to constantly acquire, and try to keep up with our neighbors, or constantly get in debt to create a lifestyle beyond our means, then have to work and spend all our energy to pay off our bills leaving hardly any or no time for the things of God then we have made money our God.   

Let me be clear here, I’m not talking about survival.  Sometimes our financial troubles are not because we created them, but could have been from circumstances beyond our control, but for many of us, it is because we constantly live beyond our means and we are now in bondage to our lenders.   Again, Jesus is talking about priorities; either you will seek the things of the kingdom or you will seek the things of this world.  We cannot have it both ways; our loyalties will be divided, according to the text, you will hate the one and love the other, or despise the one and be devoted to the other. This text comes after the one where he talks about wherever our treasures are (our affections, what we spend most of our energy doing whether mentally, emotionally, or physically) that is where our heart will be also. 

Let me share this personal testimony with you.  My husband and I made a conscious decision about 4 years ago to become debt free. We put a plan together.  The first thing we did was to write out our debt and see exactly what we owed.  It was amazing how when we wrote everything down how much trouble we realized we were in.  We were just living and spending with no plan to get out of the mess that we had created. We put a budget in place and made some major decisions as to how we could cut back our spending and redirect everything towards our debt.  This plan  included cutting back from vacations, eating out, buying clothes, etc. It was a major adjustment in our lifestyles.  I had to say no to family and friends and my life took a drastic change but we were committed to living debt free.  This is the fourth year.  We are on track.  By the end of this year, we will personally be debt free outside of our home mortgage.  So as of January 2009, we will only be paying a  mortgage and then we will put a plan in place to get rid of our mortgage in another 5 years.  Our cars, credit cards, student loans, 2^nd mortgages, etc will all be done away with and I am so looking forward to it. 

We made the sacrifice because I wanted to spend the rest of my life not being in bondage to debt and being free to travel the world and do ministry and just live care free.  It is amazing how I’ve learned what really matters in life and how I can live without all that other stuff and how I am so much happier and so much stronger spiritually because my mind is not on the bill collectors but can focus on the “things of God.”   I also am excited that I have more money now to give and even invest in other people.  It’s a wonderful feeling. I have found that something as simple as taking a walk through the park and lying on the beach can be so satisfying to me over against some of the things that I thought I needed earlier in my life that created enormous debt.   

 Yes, it takes time.  For us it was four years.  Yes, it is a sacrifice, because when everyone else is hanging out and having a good time, you’re at home because of the commitment that you made to spend less money, but you do reach your goals and it is so worth it.  You sacrificing doing the things you want to do now to be able to do them debt free later.   Okay, enough of my babbling.   

Have a great weekend.  See you on Monday. 

God Bless. Don’t forget to pray and read God’s word daily.

This entry was posted on 25. July 2008 at 12:33 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.