If you don’t know this already, let me tell you that if you are a disciple of Jesus Christ, he’s going to mess with your money. You remember that at one point Jesus positioned himself in the temple where the offerings were deposited and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury (Mark 12:41). Imagine! He intentionally watched people bringing their money into the temple. It was not a private matter with him; he knows that “where your treasure is, there your heart is also,” and he took notice of who was giving money, how much they gave, and how sacrificially they gave.
He’s watching us, too, and our money and what we do with it is not a private matter with Jesus. We are accountable to him for what we take in and how we spend it.
The Seductive Power of Money
In Matthew 6:24 Jesus said, “No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and Money.” Money is a rival god that seeks to control us by claiming to have the power of deity. It tries to convince us that it can do for us what only God can do. It claims to give us security, to give us freedom, to give us power, to meet all our needs. It clamors for the place in our heart that only God can fill.
Jesus made this clear in his dealing with the rich young ruler, who wanted to know what he must do to get eternal life. Jesus said, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
Notice that when this young man went away sad, Jesus didn’t run after him and say, “Wait, you don’t really have to sell everything, just change your attitude toward money.” No, Jesus meant what he said to that young man—he had to be converted from serving money to serving Jesus, and he wasn’t willing to do that.
It’s very easy to be in bondage to money. It has far more power over us than simply its purchasing power. We think: It’s mine; I earned it; I depend on it; I need it; I like it! Don’t mess with my money!
The Dangers of Money
How can you tell if money has become your master? Here are some checkpoints:
- Are you continually worried about money, either not having enough or losing what you have? Is that one of your greatest fears?
- Do you tend to hoard your money and keep it for yourself? Are you stingy with your money?
- Do you think of your money as your security blanket? Are you dependent upon money to solve your problems?
- Do you evaluate yourself and others by their financial status? Are people more important to you if they have more money?
- Do you make decisions solely based on money?
These are some telltale signs that money has become our Master, and believe me, it can happen to any of us. The spiritual power of money is very strong; that’s why Jesus said that you cannot serve God and money.
We need to be set free from the demonic control that money would have over us. It’s not unusual to hear someone give a testimony of how God has set that person free from sexual sin, or some addiction. Perhaps we need to make it comfortable and acceptable for Christians to confess that they have been seduced by money, and they want to be set free.
So, here’s the question for you: Do you serve God or money?
That’s a heavy question, and a disciple of Jesus Christ needs to face it head on—because Jesus is going to mess with your money, one way or the other.
Our challenge is to use the money and possessions God gives to us for good, but never let them have power over us. Richard Foster writes: “Rather than run from money, we are to take it—evil bent and all—and use it for kingdom purposes. . . Money is to be captured, subdued, and used for greater goals. We are called to use money to advance the kingdom of God.” (p. 54 – The Challenge of the Disciplined Life)
We must intentionally learn a new attitude toward money. And the first part of that new attitude is to understand that we are possessionless.
Psalm 24:1: The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it.
1 Corinthians 6:19-20: Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price.
Job 41:11: Who has a claim against me that I must pay? Everything under heaven belongs to me.
As a disciple of Jesus Christ, everything you have is simply on loan to you. You are given the stewardship of those assets, but you own nothing, because you yourself are owned by God.
You know how your company has labels on everything: Property of such and such company. You’re using the property—the desk, the computer, the chair, etc.—but you’re using it for the benefit of the company you work for. Well, we need to put that kind of label on “our stuff” to constantly remind us that we don’t own anything. We are simply entrusted with some possessions, some money, to use while we’re here on earth.
Then pray this into your life regularly: I am possessionless. I own nothing. Everything is loaned to me by God. I will give an account to God for all that he has entrusted to me.
Are you worried about money now? I know that many are facing some hard times financially, and I know how easy it is to get depressed about money. But I believe we can use these tough times to learn some very important lessons, and we can come through these days refined like gold. Our challenge is to make money our servant not our master. Here is the most powerful way to do that, as given by Richard Foster in his book, The Challenge of the Disciplined Life:
Give it away. Dethrone money by giving it away. Show money that you are not its servant; you do not value it more than people, more than God. Foster writes, “It would do us good to find ways to defame it, defile it, and trample it under our feet.
“So step on it. Yell at it. Laugh at it. List it way down on the scale of values—certainly far below friendship and cheerful surroundings. And engage in the most profane act of all—give it away. The powers that energize money cannot abide that most unnatural of acts, giving. Money is made for taking, for bargaining, for manipulating, but not for giving. This is exactly why giving has such ability to defeat the powers of money.” P. 61
How much are you giving away? Some people use the tithe as a measure of how much to give God. If you think that is legalistic, then by all means, don’t use it. Give 15 percent instead! But if you are not regularly giving God at least a tenth of all your money, you need to search your heart and seek God’s face and find out what you should be giving.
You will discover the joy of giving. You will discover the thrill of helping others. You will find yourself wishing you could give more.
2 Corinthians 9:6-7: Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.
The principle of sowing and reaping is that you reap what you sow; you reap more than you sow, and you reap in a different season than you sow. If you need money, the first and most important thing you need to do, before you do anything else, is to start giving away at least one-tenth of your money to God.
God LOVES a cheerful giver. Do you want to please God? Be a cheerful giver! He LOVES it!
Another effective way to make money your servant, not your master, is to:
- Refuse to let money be the sole determinant of what you will or won’t do!
When money makes our decisions, we are then servants of money. For example:
- You are trying to find a job that pays more money, because you need more money. Money has made that decision. Instead, you need to ask God if it’s good for you to find a new job. What will that do to your life? How will that affect your relationships? Can you handle more money?
- You want to buy a new car and you can afford it. Money makes that decision. You buy it because you can afford it and you want it. Perhaps, if you prayed about it, God would say, “Make your car last another five years and send the money you would have spent on a car to the church.”
- You believe God is leading you into some kind of ministry, but that would take money and you don’t have the money. If God is leading you, you don’t decide not to do it based on lack of money. You have to trust him to provide it.
As Foster writes: “If money determines what we do or do not do, then money is our boss. If God determines what we do or do not do, then God is our boss. My money might say to me, ‘You have enough to buy that,’ but my God might say to me, ‘I don’t want you to have it.’ Now, who am I to obey?” p 56
Learning to see money as a tool God gives you to steward and use and not let it control us is, I think, a lifelong pursuit for most of us. But we can learn to be set free from the control of money, by trusting Jesus and giving him the final word on how we spend our money.
The point is, we have to learn that we are simply stewards of God’s goodness, everything we think we own is truly just on loan from God, and we will give an account of how we used it.
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