“As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
– Joshua 24:15
We may be familiar with the story in Matthew 6:24, when Jesus warns a wealthy young follower that He must choose between his money and his faith: “‘No one can serve two masters, since either he will hate one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.’”
This seems like a harsh admonishment, but we often read it from a 21st century, Western perspective. Let’s go a little deeper for a minute.
According to Jesus, we can’t have it both ways: We can’t serve (submit or be a slave to) money and serve (submit or be a slave to) God.
loving one and hating another
We will love one and hate the other. In Hebrew culture loving and hating are the only options when comparing two things. We would say we love apples but oranges are good too. In Hebrew culture it would be I love apples and oranges I hate.
In America, we love coffee and we love chocolate and we all know it’s a different kind of love than loving our husband or our children. We hate it when someone cuts us off in traffic, but it’s hardly the same kind of hatred that a person would feel for an enemy.
In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus is recorded as declaring: “‘If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple’” (Ch. 14:26-27).
When we read verses like this we have to understand the point is to love Jesus with a love that is incomparable to any other love. Our love for all others will look like hate when compared to our love for God. The passage about serving and our definition of serving is the same. We must serve (submit and become a bond servant to) God and God alone. He doesn’t fall into the same category as anything or anyone else. We can’t have it both ways. We don’t love God and love money – not in the way God calls us to love – we must choose one or the other.
God or money
No, Enjoying the work we do to earn a living is not wrong; it’s a matter of which one, God or money, we choose to submit and bind ourselves to, the one we love first and foremost. We will inevitably love only one and come to hate the other for dividing our affections, splitting our priorities, and ultimately convicting us. According to God,our deepest love and service can’t be shared between Him and anything or anyone else.
A master is the one in charge of his servant’s time and activities. If money is the boss of our time, attention, and priorities then money is our master. If God is in charge of our time, attention, and priorities then God is our master. It’s easy enough to figure out, but it’s hard to humble ourselves and repent if we find that money has become the master of our lives.
Jesus explains how to discern whom we serve: “‘Therefore I tell you: Don’t worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Isn’t life more than food and the body more than clothing?’” (Matthew 6:25).
God doesn’t tell us not to work or deal with money; He implores us not to worry about it. If we are constantly stressed about our finances, we might be serving them. When we are trusting God with our lives, including our finances, we are serving Him. Do we go to God with our money issues, or do we ignore Him and just go to work?
what or who are you serving
Serving really works full circle: What we give our service to is usually what we turn around and serve up to others. Are you more inclined to give love to someone in need or write a check? Giving money to help or support someone is good and right, but if we believe that it is an answer to their problem we are just serving money – not Jesus.
Giving money because we serve a generous God who demonstrates generosity to us is a way to take on the right order: God as master over us and our money. However, if we use money as a tool to serve God and others, or if we submit to money’s influence over us and how we give, then we might have our service backwards.
think, pray and discuss through these questions
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Whom do you serve?
How do you know?
When faced with an issue, what comes to mind first in order to solve (serve) the issue?
