3 Reasons Your Approach to Money Matters to God
“Honestly can you have a relationship with money? If so I don’t like mine. Money feels like my last boss, or my ex—too controlling and manipulative. I think I’d like to break up but I still need it and like it too much to break up.” Matt was 25 at the time he said those words to me. They struck me at honest, and a little weird. I never thought about money in those terms. I had always thought of it as a tool, which it is. But it’s more. Money amplifies the heart. Money reveals so much about us. How we spend, invest, protect, save and use it shows what we truly treasure.
1. Our approach to money matter because it reveals our deepest struggles.
In one of the most famous lines on money from Jesus lips he said, “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money (Matthew 6:24, ESV).” Why did he pick money? He didn’t say our sexual appetites, the devil, food, or anything else. Jesus seemingly pointed a chief competitor to him and picked on money.
Money is a big deal and how we handle it is very telling. Tim Keller said, “That which you easily spend money on is your real god.” If you don’t think twice about spending money on your health, wardrobe, career, appetite, experiences, kids, etc. Those all reveal things about us. Our idols and true treasure is revealed where we easily spend money.
2. Our money can impact eternity.
Luke 16 tells a parable not commonly taught. Let me summarize it. A rich man hires a money manager. The money manager is dishonest and gets fired. Before the manager is done he cuts deals with the soon to be former bosses clients. His logic is he doesn’t want to beg or dig. So he uses the little bit of time left with the bosses books to set up the next season of life.
The big twist is when the boss comes back. Jesus says, “The master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness. For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings (8-9 ESV).”
The big take away is what we do with our lives here and now can and will impact our eternal dwellings. As Randy Alcorn aptly says, “You can’t take it with you, but you can send it on ahead.”
3. Our generosity can break the pull of money.
When we move into this idea of storing up our wealth in heaven it changes our heart. Matthew 6:21 says, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” One of the motives for giving in this way is to follow the command of Jesus in the verses preceding 22, “But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven…” Note, the storing up is for ourselves.
Odd as it may seem, this equation of giving involves us. But it’s the where we are “storing up for ourselves” that is the key. We can live for the moment here or the retirement dream then. But what if we could live now by the light of “when we’ve been there ten thousand years”? What if we could so drive our focus to where our real citizenship lies?
Let’s press into our upward calling. Let’s be people who are marked by radical and even otherworldly generosity! Let’s live here like we will live forever in our heavenly home!