Numbers 3-4
Mark 3:20-35
“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.” Matthew 6:24
Where is our treasure? Some of us may think of our security deposit box or a safe. In Matthew 6:19-21, Jesus tells us, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Then, Jesus stated one of His greatest warnings and one of His greatest promises in one verse: “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money” (Matthew 6:24).
What did Jesus mean? Wealth in and of itself is not sinful. We have evidence of people in Scripture like Abraham and David who had tremendous wealth and walked with God. In the Gospels, we see women of means who have excess in their lives supplying the needs of Jesus and His ministry. What we need to know is that having wealth is different from serving wealth. Loving wealth and having an attachment to money can become enslaving. Jesus described money as a master that exercises some authority or influence over our lives.
In fact, Jesus places loving money at odds with serving God, where we will be devoted to one and despise the other. We can only have one master, not two. When money becomes the lord of someone’s life, it can make them do all kinds of things that they never imagined themselves doing. During the housing market crash of 2008, when there was tremendous distress on Wall Street, there were a string of high-profile individuals taking their own lives. We see money had moved from being a useful thing in their lives to becoming the ultimate driving force of their lives.
If money becomes the ultimate lord of our lives, when we lose it, all purpose and meaning in our lives are lost with it. Yet, there is a tremendous promise because the reverse is also true. If God is the Lord of our lives, as we yield our lives to God, the grip of money on us is broken. We cannot serve both, so when we are submitted to God and His kingdom, money loses its grip on us.
Watch that we do not become a slave to money, because we can only have one master. May we not let wealth get a grip in our life, but seek to use it to glorify God.
Dear God, I yield my life to You as the ultimate Lord of my life. I ask that You help keep me away from being enslaved to money. Thank You, Lord.