You cannot serve both God and Money
Did you know that Jesus devoted 42% (16 out of 38) of his parables to the topic of money/possessions/stewardship? The reason he did so is because how we view and use money is an indicator of the heart. Jesus said, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21). Furthermore, how we view and use money speaks about who we worship. Jesus said:
Matthew 6:22–24 – “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness! 24 No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.”
When the Lord is talking about the eye in verse 22, he’s not talking about the physical eye which is the eye of the body. He’s talking about the metaphorical eye, the eye of the soul. But he uses the analogy of the physical eye to make his point. The physical eye lets in light, which enables us to see. If the eye of your soul is focused on Jesus and his Word, then you will have the right perspective on life and that perspective will lead you to store up treasures in heaven. Your whole body will be full of light.
Jesus tells us that what we do with our money shows something about who we really worship. Notice in v.24 that Jesus didn’t say we “ought not” to serve God and money. He said, “you cannot serve both God and money.” It’s impossible to have two masters. Either money is your Lord, or Jesus is your Lord, but they cannot both be Lord at the same time! Three Biblical ideas will help us serve God and not money.
1. It’s God’s Money, not ours
Psalm 24:1 – “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it.”
All the money and possessions we have actual belong to God. He is the owner: It’s not my car; it’s not my home; it’s not my money. We are merely managers/stewards of God’s stuff. God said through the prophet Haggai:
Haggai 2:8 – “‘The silver is mine and the gold is mine,’ declares the LORD Almighty.”
If we see our money as ALL belonging to God, the question will not be “How much of my money do I give to God?” but rather it becomes, “How much of God’s money do I keep for myself?”
2. God is concerned not with actual wealth, but with our attitude towards wealth
1 Timothy 6:10 – “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.”
It’s not money that is a root of all kinds of evil. It’s the love of money. You can be a rich person who is greedy, but you can also be a poor person but have a greedy attitude towards money. Whether you have a lot of money or little bit of money, the important thing is your attitude towards it. The way to avoid loving money is to give money away in proportion to your means.
1 Corinthians 16:1b–2 – “Do what I told the Galatian churches to do. 2 On the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with your income, saving it up, so that when I come no collections will have to be made.”
The Lord commands us to give proportionally (a percentage) of our income to support the Lord’s work through the local church and missions.
3. Giving to the Lord’s work is a test of our trust in Him
Malachi 3:10,12 – Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it….
God invites us to test him and trust him by our giving. Every time we give our tithe/offering, it loosens the grip of money on us. Every time we give, we are declaring that money is not our god, but rather the Lord is God! Each tithe/offering is a way of acknowledging that all the money we have belongs to God, and by doing so we are saying “Lord, I trust you enough to supply all my needs with what is left over.”
I recently read something about Robert Letourneau who lived from 1888-1969. He was a Christian businessman, who had a very successful career. He was the pioneer and inventor of earth-moving machines and also introduced the rubber tire into the earth-moving industry. At one point, LeTourneau’s machines accounted for nearly three quarters of the earthmoving machines during WWII. (https://www.epm.org/resources/2011/Feb/17/lesson-priorities-rg-letourneau/)
Because of his extraordinary business success, he became very wealthy. And yet, LeTourneau understood that the reason God blessed him financially was so that he could be a blessing to others. Letourneau reached the point of giving 90 percent of his income to the Lord’s church and missions. He is famous for saying this: “I shovel out the money, and God shovels it back—but God has a bigger shovel.” I hope you can testify to God’s “bigger shovel.” God doesn’t just give to you. He wants to give gifts through you. May we be the blessing He wants us to be.
