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.
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