“And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.“One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much. If then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful in that which is another's, who will give you that which is your own? No servant can serve two masters, for 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 God and money.” (Luke 16: 9-13)
You cannot serve God and money. I suppose we all try though. Money rules this world just as much as the prince of the air does. So we think anyway. It is hard not to think that life would be more secure with a huge savings account, or great investments. And I’m not sure there is anything wrong with being smart about money but we dare not put our trust in it. We trust and serve God.
Part of being smart about our money is listening to what God has to say to us concerning its use. Use it to make friends he says, so that when it fails. This is the thing, money fails. It is not an if, it is a when. So invest it in friendship, invest it in things that matter. The world doesn’t always understand this.
The other day I saw a picture, and it made me think, those who live in glass houses ought not throw stones at stain glass. It was a picture of a bunch of “religious” institutions, and then it said basically that God could not condone that when there was so much suffering going on in the world. I don’t buy it for a minute. I mean building beautiful buildings not only gives the community a testament to the faith, but it also provides jobs for a lot of people. And giving a local contractor a job is perhaps the best king of charity. But the thing that strikes me as hollow, is that historically it has been those people who spend money building nice churches to worship in, that spend the most on alleviating suffering in this world. In fact it would hardly even be a concern of people in this world if it wasn’t for the influence of those people building the nice church buildings, and God is served by both.
Money fails, God does not.
No comments:
Post a Comment