T H E O P H I L U S

¹⁰ “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. ¹¹ So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? ¹² And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else’s property, who will give you property of your own? ¹³ “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” 

Luke 16:1-13

The love of money has been one of the greatest sins of all our history as humanity. Every war, every reason for corruption in our nation’s politics, violence of our neighborhoods, and divorces in our homes have roots in this very sin. We have made the amount of money one has, or the control of money as a source for life and personal significance. Even as Christians there are times we have found ourselves defining one’s success in measures of how much money we have made, or the kinds of things we have accomplished with it. The love of money can be so deeply encroached that we often even make coverups of doing righteous things in the name of Christ as an excuse to pursue wealth.

This bible passage in particular speaks to the Pharisees who loved money more than they loved God. And they certainly loved money more than they loved even their own people, let alone loving Jesus. As Christians, we have to make one thing straight – we serve God first. God does not serve us to give us more of what we want. The discipline of being a good steward begins with a number of resources that we may hold other than money itself. This includes time, space, and energy.

There is a saying that time equals money, but that is in every sense a secular ideology that has caused so much pain in this world to people who cannot keep up with our twisted perception of time. Then what does time equal in value to? The reality is that time is precious, but it does not equal my money and how much I could be making, or how much it would cost me. Rather, time belongs to God. It is controlled by him and made by him. What ever we consider our time, is his. In short and simple words, It ought to be spent on doing God’s work to bring glory to His kingdom. This goes the same for space and energy.

Our relationship with money then ought to always be the same as the way we think now about time, space and energy – they all belong to God. We are merely stewards of what resources are placed in front of us and put in our accounts. How can I say that? because time, space, energy, and money will continue to exist on this earth when we pass away – with or without us. Money will simply be passed onto somebody else after we die. It was never ours in the first place! Thus the next time we have the inkling to say “my money”, we must begin to be more reflecting on that statement and instead begin to say “God’s money”. When we realize money belongs to God, that we belong to God, and that both money and myself are not my own, the way we spend and the way we choose to live life becomes significantly different.

Do you love God more than you love money? begin to think critically on that matter today, and I pray that (including myself) we would be able to change the way we live and make choices each day with our time, space, energy and money; that it would not merely be enough that we are blessed, but become a blessing to His name.