1 master, not 2

Luke 16:13

"No one can serve two masters.

For you will hate one and love the other;

you will be devoted to one and despise the other.

You cannot serve both God and money."

Here's what my Life Application Bible notes about this verse...

Money has the power to take God's place in your life.

It can become your master.

How can you tell if you are a slave to money?

Do you think & worry about it frequently?

Do you give up what you should be doing or would like to do in order to make more money?

Do you spend a great deal of time caring for your possessions?

Is it hard for you to give money away?

Are you in debt?

Money is a hard master & a deceptive one.

Wealth promises power & control, but it often cannot deliver.

Great fortunes can be made - & lost – overnight.

No amount of money can provide health, happiness, or eternal life.

How much better it is to let God be your master.

His servants have peach of mind & security,

both now & forever.

We live in a time when “greed is good”

(spoken by Gordon Gekko as the fictional character in te 2987 film, “Wall Street.).

Money & the making / the having of it is all that matters.

And yet we also say we admire those among us who live “simpler lives”, even though we'd NEVER live like them.

They think “just because I can doesn't necessarily mean I should”.

So much of our lives here in uber-materialistic America is ruled by the unspoken axiom,

“if I can, therefore I should ________”. (You fill in the blank.)

We here in America live like large sums of money will always be available.

Surely we should have seen the fallacy of that kind of thinking in 2008 & ensuing years with the Great Recession.

But we don't learn from our past anymore than previous generations.

We try to have it both ways – we lead a prissy, precious Christian life while amassing at all costs wealth for a “secure future”.

But the American Dream & a life of discipleship are simply not compatible.

And before you flame me because you believe otherwise, check what Jesus had to say about money.

And please don't give me the old thinking, “well, I can't help it if the Lord chooses to bless me” rationale.

We both know better.

Think about it today – are my loyalties divided, or do I a laser focus on what really matters.