Devotional--Money, Part III

1 Timothy 6:10-12
For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains.
11 But as for you, man of God, shun all this; pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, gentleness. 12Fight the good fight of the faith; take hold of the eternal life, to which you were called and for which you made* the good confession in the presence of many witnesses

Hebrews 5:5-6

Keep your lives free from the love of money, and be content with what you have; for he has said, ‘I will never leave you or forsake you.’ 6So we can say with confidence,
‘The Lord is my helper;
I will not be afraid.
What can anyone do to me?’
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  Now that we've talked about money as one kind of wealth, and touched on the fact that it matters to God how we spend our money, I think it's important to touch on one very important thing:  money is not evil.  In the church, I think we have been guilty of defining money as negative, and thus not having to engage with it other than to tell people to tithe.

  Scripture describes the relationship as a little more complicated--it's the love of money that corrupts us, for we begin to love money more than we love God, more than we love our neighbor, more than we love ourselves, and that is where the sin arises--when money becomes an idol and we believe that it can provide true life, abundant life, when in fact only God can give us that.  Money itself is just a tool that enables us to buy and sell--it is neutral, but when we love it, we sin.

  So how do we keep our lives free from the love of money?  We'll continue to explore our relationship with money as we go, but recognizing and naming its power is the first step.  When we can look back at our own history and see the times and places where money has held power over us, we can begin to recognize how dangerous the love of money can be.  Also, we can look around society, and see how the rich in this world are just as broken as the rest of us--they sin and live in broken relationships just as we do.

  One exercise that can be helpful is think about what you would do $1,000,000 fell into your lap today, no strings attached, except that you had to spend it all in a week.  What would you do with it?  How would you spend it?  How much would be spent on yourself, and how much would be used for others?  Answering that question can help each of us understand our attitude toward money, and gives us a place to start as we explore our complicated relationship with money.

Blessings