“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
“The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!
“No one 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” (Matthew 6:19-24; all Scripture quotations are from the English Standard Version).

In the 1987 movie Wall Street, Gordon Gecko (played by Michael Douglas) made a statement that summarizes American culture: “Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.” His character’s reasoning reflected the mindset of the corporate world of the late 1980s, and “greed is good” might as well be the official motto of modern Western culture.

We want stuff and do not want to limit ourselves to the basics. We need food; we spend extra for supersized restaurant meals, which has contributed to a national obesity epidemic. We need to be able to travel between home, work, and the other locations that require our presence; we go into debt to buy more expensive cars with all of the extras so that everybody envies us when we arrive. We need to keep in touch with family and friends; we buy an armory of electronic gadgets to make phone calls, take photographs, and post videos on the Internet. Many people do not know the difference between a need and a want.

Jesus did not condemn money. He knew we need it to survive in a sin-scarred selfish society. Most of His parables involved money, and in many cases, He depicted the person who made wise financial decisions as the role model for His disciples.

However, He did recognize that the love of money can be a source of overwhelming temptation for many people. On another occasion, Jesus invited a rich man to sell all he owned, give the money to the poor, and follow Him as one of His disciples. When the man walked away, Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God” (Matthew 16:23-24). Nevertheless, “with God all things are possible” (verse 26), so it is still possible for a wealthy person to go to heaven.

Years later, the apostle Paul would write, “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs” (1 Timothy 6:10). In both passages, it was not money itself that was evil; money is an inanimate object with no intrinsic moral status. Our attitude about money is the big question: Is it a tool that we can use for good, or is it an idol to which we give the devotion that belongs to God? When Jesus said, “You cannot serve God and money” (some translations say “God and Mammon”), He was depicting money as a pagan deity and our service as an act of worship to one of these false gods.

A few questions might help us determine whether the love of money drives our lives. Do we look for opportunities to use our money to help and bless others, or are we chiefly concerned with becoming rich or buying a lot of luxuries for ourselves? Will we sacrifice prayer, fellowship, church attendance, or other opportunities to serve God because we want to gather more money? Are we jealous of those who seem to be wealthier than we are? Are we proud of how much “stuff” we have?

We can use money wisely to meet our needs, care for our families, and exercise the Christian virtue of charity by helping others. By doing this, we lay up treasures in heaven. We can imagine the money we give to help others in Jesus’ name as representing an investment in a heavenly bank account. It will not fade away; it will remain secure. Eternal life will not disappear. Earthly treasures are temporary and fleeting: the stock market rises and falls, with investments skyrocketing in value one week and crashing the next; banks are robbed; identity thieves find ways to hack into our bank accounts or create credit cards in our names, stealing our money. Earthly treasures can be stolen, but all things in heaven remain secure.

“Choose this day whom you will serve” (Joshua 24:15). Do you live to love and serve God, or do you seek to love and cherish money? Where is your treasure stored? Where does your heart reside?

(An extra thought: Some Christians debate the actual meaning of 1 Timothy 6:10. Is Paul really saying that all evil is rooted in the love of money? Or is the love of money the root of many kinds of evil, but not exactly all of them? Most English translations seem to tweak the sentence structure. Literally, Paul’s Greek should be translated as “A root, therefore, of all the evils is the love of money.”)

Lord God, forgive us for the times we valued things more than You or other people. Fill us with love for You that will enable us to put money and possessions in the right place. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Please share your thoughts about God, faith, and possessions in the comments area below.

Copyright © 2024 Michael E. Lynch. All rights reserved.