[363 words]
Money plays a big part in our world, and I’m not naive enough to think we can do without it in today’s modern economy. The Bible has quite a lot to say about our relationship with money and the dangers of being greedy. It’s good for us to take time to examine ourselves on a regular basis when it comes to our relationships with money and our possessions. How much of your time is taken up in the pursuit of getting more and more things?
We can make money and have money, but we also have to be willing to let it go. Money can’t be the center of our life. “Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, for God has said: ‘Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you’” (Hebrews 13:5).
Pursing after money leads us away from God. “For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. By craving it, some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows” (1 Timothy 6:10).
We may think “I will never fall into idolatry,” but the Bible tells us that greed is a form of idolatry. The love of money is the same as putting our faith in something other than God. We depend on our own ability to make money and the money’s ability to buy the things we want. “Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry” (Colossians 3:5).
God has told us to have nothing to do with greed. “But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people” (Ephesians 5:3).
How hard would it be to walk away from everything you own? “When Jesus heard this, he said to him, ‘You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me’” (Luke 18:22). Would Jesus say this to me?
Brad Tolbert
Monticello church of Christ
Monticello, AR