Men will be lovers of money

By Hayley Boud

(II Timothy 3:2-5)

Luke 16:13, ‘No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate one and love the other, or else he will hold on to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money’.
Servant
One who lives in the household and is considered part of the family but is not necessarily born into the family.

As Christians we are servants of God and we live in the family of God although we weren’t born into it. This isn’t the same as a slave because a slave has no choice but a servant is free to serve or not and as Christians we choose to serve out of love for God. And why do we love God and want so much to please Him and serve Him? Because He first loved us and we can remember times when He has served us.

We were not born with the desire to serve money but as we grow up we learn more and more the value of money (gold, diamonds, cars, houses). This pushes us to covet and to try our best to get these things. When we do that, we serve money and not God.

Master
One who has authority over those who serve. As Christians we must have only one master as confirmed by the first commandment;

Exodus 20:3-5, “You shall have no other Gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol or any likeness of what is in heaven above or in the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them; for I am a jealous God visiting the iniquity of the fathers n the children, on the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me.”
The only one thing that we can serve on this earth is God. He must be our only master. When you serve someone you are looking only at that person and waiting for their command. If Michael hires a servant today that person will know that Michael is my boss and I must do what he asks me. He/she will never have the time to serve me as well. The servant will not move until Michael says so. He will wait until given an order. A servant will never get bored waiting or go off somewhere to fill in time or make up his own way to serve his master.

e.g. Michael, how would you feel if your servant decided to throw your favorite cheeses out of your fridge and into the rubbish? And after you have explained that you like your cheese to be bit smelly, he continues to throw it out anyway? Will you be happy? Annoyed? Will you feel like getting a new servant?

We have to remember that when we are serving God, we are doing HIS will and not our own. When you serve God you are looking to Him and waiting for His next command and you will not move until He says so. And wherever your master goes you will follow, quietly and patiently waiting for his order.

We can act the same way toward money. Many people love money and follow money wherever it goes and when it says jump, they will jump. Often people make decisions with only money as their reason.

“I decided to work in London because it pays 3x NZ”
“I decided to study as a doctor because it pays better than a vet”
“I decided to marry him because his parents are really rich”

Many people are inspired by money but never by God. Sometimes we struggle to go to church or to meetings but if we were told, “go to church this Sunday because the pastor is giving out 1000 to each person who comes”, we would be there without a doubt. NOTHING WOULD STOP US! This proves our real master is money and it shows how much we love money more than God.

I Timothy 6:10, “For the love of money is the root of all evil which while some coveted after they have erred from the faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows”.

Today everywhere we see men and women will commit any crime to obtain money but some crimes are more subtle. We forget that we must place God first in our lives and in every decision we make and as servants we must ask God first before doing anything. When we forget that; we are committing a serious crime in God’s eyes. And money can be the reason that we forget God.

The verse says that some covet after money. To covet is to reach for something. And to err means to be led astray. So when you reach after money you will be led away from your faith and from this you will be pierced with many sorrows.

When you serve God and only God, He is a good master and He will never let you go without all your needs. If you need money, just ask and He will give it to you.

Sometimes we need money and so we steal from God by not giving Him the 10% that He has asked for (Malachi 3:8,9). When we do that we will be led away from faith and then we will have sorrow. When we give to God what is His, He will increase our faith and we will receive even more than what we gave Him. But when we steal from God, He teaches us a lesson and we will find that we will be cut with sorrow because every week we will find that we have no money. We won’t be able to explain where our money goes and we will start to really suffer. But when we remember God and give to Him, we will find that every week we have more than what we are supposed to have.

Sometimes we need money so we steal from others. You might write down in your pay slip longer hours than you worked. You might charge somebody for a service when it was God who gave you freely that time and the ability to do it. But when we trust in God, He provides and our faith gets stronger and stronger.

Money can really destroy relationships and my advice to any one here is to not let money destroy love that you have for others. If you have a problem of money with someone it is better to let that go and just ask God to help you. For example, if someone owes you money, for the sake of love just ask God to repay you. And if you owe someone money, for the sake of love make sure that you repay it as quickly as you can. Ask God for help. God is really rich so don’t forget to ask Him when you need it.

One time I gave somebody a lot of money because they were struggling and they needed money. After that a couple of years I found that I needed that person’s help in a service that I needed. Just as an example I will say that I needed my shoes repaired and this person was able to fix a pair of shoes for me. I expected that he would not charge me since I had given him a lot of money in the past, but that wasn’t the case. I was charged at full price and so I felt a bit annoyed by that. But that is not the way, when we do something for someone we must forget about it. We must not think now they owe us something. When we do something for someone, we are really doing it for God as Jesus said, ‘when you fed the hungry you fed Me’. So it is God who owes us and therefore God who we should turn to for payment.

Also, many Christian musicians around the world can be easily led astray if they are not careful. Some Christians might sing songs about angels instead of just singing about Christ Himself. So instead of glorifying Christ we can easily give the glory to angels and so we see just how clever satan is. He will never ask a Christian to sing, ‘satan brought me here’ but as you know satan is an angel so he gets glorified when we sing about angels. This is how a Christian can be led astray. Some Christians might think that if they sing about Jesus Christ, the world won't be interested in that song and the sales will be low and so because of money they can be led astray from their faith. As Christians we have to be careful not to let money lead us away from the faith.

In the Bible there is a man that is so happy because he has barns filled with grain and so he is rich. But that night he died. If you try to hold onto money what will you gain? A bank full of money and then you die. It’s better to not care about money and to use it and to give it freely because holding onto it will amount to nothing in the end. And as you know, rich people are made rich because they know how to use money to make money. As Christians, the way to make money is to give it away. The Bible says to test God on that one (Malachi 3:10).


II Tim 3:5 says that because of this the times will be perilous so let us not make our days difficult but let us make our days easier by trusting in God and serving only Him and nothing else.