The Love of Money
‘You cannot serve both God and money.’
Matthew 6:24 NIV
Some people think that having money is wrong. But the Bible never says that. What it actually says is that ‘the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil’ (1 Timothy 6:10 NIV). It’s not the accumulation of money that’s the problem, it’s the love we have for it. During the teachings known as the ‘Sermon on the Mount’, Jesus taught: ‘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 NIV). He was basically saying that we can’t love God and love worldly things at the same time. God wants our whole heart. He doesn’t want to have a part of our love, while we give love to other things too. Jesus went on to teach that the greatest commandment is to ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind’ (Matthew 22:37 NIV). If we’re being honest, many of us don’t love God with undivided hearts. Other things take pieces of our hearts. Maybe it’s our relationships with others, our career, our hobbies, or our finances. While they are all important parts of our lives, loving God wholeheartedly means we don’t allow ourselves to be distracted and preoccupied by those things; instead we’re fully devoted to God. In order to do this, we need to protect our hearts from being taken over with love for other things. In Proverbs we’re told: ‘Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it’ (4:23 NIV). If love for God is filling our hearts, everything else will fall into place. We’ll use our money well, we’ll have great relationships, and we’ll move forwards in life.