Monsters
Friday, July 28, 2023
When Everything
In Our Lives Looks Like An Obstacle
Blocking Our Way
…
Does Money
Really Rescue Us?
Psalm 97:10
The Lord loves those who hate evil; he guards the lives of his faithful; he rescues them from the hand of the wicked.
Matthew 6:24
No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.
Words of Grace For Today
No one can serve two masters! Really!
Ask any of the many double agents. Hardly ever does a life of a spy turn out well, even less so for double agents. It’s just hard to keep up with all the lies, and keep them all straight! Especially when you have to keep two completely separate sets of lies (and many subsets) straight.
One might call that the life of a politician, or a diplomate, or bishop, or dirty cop but that would be to simplify their ‘complicated’ lives.
The reality is today pretty much anyone who makes a decent wage or salary and who owns or rents a home is actually owned by their financial obligations, their possessions. That is their possessions posses them.
The challenge is to image a life where one is not obligated financially, without being so wealthy that one has never or never will again face debt problems, just money problems. Harder is to actually find a way into such a kind of life, and then to live it.
What would it, what could it, possibly look like, this life of serving God, and not money?
Enough saints have left wealth and entered poverty, but as it was said of Gandhi, one who lived in poverty, ‘it takes an awful lot of money to keep Gandhi in poverty.’
Thankfully our serving God is not that for which we are rewarded God’s grace, favour, and love. God chooses us, forgives us sinners (again and again and again when we certainly do not deserve it; that’s grace), bestows on us all sorts of favours (blessings and gifts of the Holy Spirit, some even have a monetary value to them at times), and loves us steadfastly and faithfully without end.
So we start another day, sinners still, God-made saints, thankful for God’s awesome works for us; giving God thanks and praise (even as we struggle to balance our expenses and income.)