We Cannot Serve Both

 Luke 16: 9-15

The Futility of Wealth

⁹ I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.

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.”

¹⁴ The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all this and were sneering at Jesus. ¹⁵ He said to them, “You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of others, but God knows your hearts. What people value highly is detestable in God’s sight.

This is a hard Gospel for a world that revolves around the pursuit of wealth.  How much energy is spent on amassing it? How much suffering results from the selfish hoarding of it? How much injustice, from the dishonesty often associated with the acquiring of it?  How much unhappiness from the love of it? Yes, we need money to buy the essentials for survival and the good we can do for so many.  It is a question of balance.  When money dictates our morals, then we know we are off-balance.  Jesus states it simply: "You cannot serve both God and money."  Period.

Bro. Rene