God Alone

God Alone

Read: Matthew 6:19-24

“You cannot serve both God and Money.”

Matthew 6:24

“The golden age only comes to men when they have forgotten gold.”

—G. K. Chesterton

IN WORD We may consider ourselves far beyond materialism. “Jesus doesn’t mean that wealth is bad, He only means that we cannot be attached to it.” This is the mantra that Christians often quote when confronted with verses about materialism. But in so quoting, we often betray the fact that we are attached. We will so quickly offer caveats to Jesus’ statements about money that we demonstrate ourselves suspiciously wedded to our materialism. The more we deny His judgments against “things,” the more we show ourselves to be possessed by them. “Jesus isn’t really asking the rich young ruler to sell his possessions, He is only pinpointing the young man’s idols,” we say hastily. “Jesus doesn’t mean that we can’t lay up treasures on earth, He just means that shouldn’t be our priority.” We are exactly right in these interpretations. But our vigorous defense of them is suspicious.

IN DEED Our understanding of this verse really should go in the other direction. Instead of apologetics for Jesus’ severity toward money, we must apply His judgment to even other areas. “You cannot serve both God and _______.” He might as well have let us fill in the blank ourselves, and He indicates as much in the first part of this verse. Having two masters is always an inappropriate situation. It leads to double-mindedness and neglect of at least one, if not both.

Does Jesus contend with any rivals in our lives? Do we have any “gods” before Him? We may not know the answer to this until He asks us to give one up. Like the rich young ruler (Luke 18:18-23), we often don’t know our idols until they are threatened. Try this exercise: Let someone fill in the blank above with every rival he or she can think of and then measure the defensiveness of your reaction. This may show where God wants to work in your life.