Serving Two Masters

Chuckle: "Why do croutons come in airtight packages? It's just stale bread to begin with."

Good Quote: "Each man decides whether he will be engulfed by the urgent, engrossed by the trivial, or enriched by the eternal" --William Arthur Ward

"No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money" (Matthew 6:24 NLT).

As Christians, we have no choice but to live in a society where many people worship and serve money. Christians are certainly not immune to adopting this worldly view. Many spend their entire lives accumulating and storing money and possessions, only to die and leave it all behind. I've never seen a hearse pulling a U-Haul trailer. Have you? Unfortunately, the commitment of many to money and what it can buy far outweighs their commitment to God and spiritual matters.

Can you honestly say that God, and not money, is your master? Whatever you store up, you will spend much of your time and energy thinking about it, fretting about it, and planning how to accumulate more. Are the Choices You Make Based on Materialism? "Let your character be free from the love of money. . ." (Hebrews 13:5). "For the love of money is at the root of all kinds of evil. And some people, craving money, have wandered away from the faith, and pierced themselves with many sorrows (griefs)" (I Timothy 6:10 NLT). This passage is often misquoted. It is not money that is the problem -- it is our infatuation with it. It is making it our master.

God's Word encourages hard work, and good management to provide for our families. Having possessions, or not, is not the issue. It is our attitudes toward them. We are either serving God or serving money. If we are serving money, we are allowing it to control us instead of the Holy Spirit as we worship and serve God as our Master. We can become possessed by our possessions. An easy test is to ask yourself this question: "Which occupies more of my thoughts, time, and efforts -- God or money?

In the teachings of Jesus, He often contrasted heavenly values with earthly values. He explains that our first loyalty should be to those things that do not fade, cannot be stolen or used up, and never wear out. "Store your treasures in heaven, where they will never become moth-eaten or rusty and where they will be safe from thieves. Wherever your treasure is, there your heart and thoughts will be" (Matthew 6:20-21 NLT). If money and possessions are becoming too important to us, we should evaluate our walk with, and faithfulness to, our Lord.

In our basic passage, Jesus is asking us to make a choice: to serve Him or material things. If we choose to truly make Him the Master of our lives, He will teach us to be content with whatever we have because we have chosen that which has eternal consequences. He also tells us not to worry about our physical needs, and promises to supply what we need if we place Him first in our lives (Matthew 6:33).

Love, Jerry & Dotse