The Master(s) We Serve- Matthew 6:24

"No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth."

- Matthew 6:24

It's a very simple principle. There can only be one master.

To understand it, though, we have to recognize that being in service to a master doesn't look like a job we might have today where we can resign and leave the job, or leave work early if we aren't feeling good, or take 2 weeks paid vacation. The service that Jesus is referring to is that of a slave that has lost all control over his life. In a position of slavery, it is impossible to have more than one master because at some point, the two masters' orders are going to conflict. At that point, the slave would have to choose which to obey and which to disobey. "He will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other." There is no other way around it.

When it's viewed from the perspective of slavery, it is a very easy, indeed, to understand, when Jesus makes the transition to, "You cannot serve God and wealth."

But, thankfully, we don't live in a slave society any more. The masters we choose in the form of bosses are just that...the masters we choose. We demand certain rights in the work place, paid vacation, benefits, and flexible hours, or else we begin the search for a new master/ job opening. Maybe the blessing of our lack of first hand knowledge about slavery is also a curse when it comes to our Christianity because without that understanding of slavery, we seem to be able to gloss over this insight by Jesus and pretend that we can in fact serve not just two, but several masters, the greatest of which, of course, is God.

We serve the master of a good education.
We serve the masters called coaches.
We serve the master of financial peace of mind subtly called insurance and retirement plans.
We serve the master of selfishness and sloth in front of a T.V. thinly disguised as "me-time."
We serve the master of mammon (the KJV translation of "wealth" above) that is really just possessions, as we build bigger and bigger storage buildings and closets to hold all of our stuff that later gets sold in a yard sale or given to Goodwill.
We serve the master of popularity as we say what we think people want to hear.
We serve so many different masters every day.

But of course. We also serve our Master and Savior, God.

And we serve Him more than the others...or at least we try to.

That's what we tell ourselves. But Jesus knew a long time ago what that type of splintered devotion would do. It would force people claiming to be slaves to righteousness to choose at different times between God and whatever other master happens to be beckoning. Jesus knew that it is impossible to serve two masters. We have to choose.

Unfortunately, today we don't understand slavery. We pretend like we are not slaves to those things that are dividing our loyalties to God. But think back for a minute about the times you have said "no" to a prompting inside you to do something good because you feared for your physical, financial, or emotional safety. Think back in your life about the times you have said "no" to good works or to edifying the body of Christ because you had work or homework, or even your favorite show to watch. Think about the times you have given in to the temptation to gossip. Think about how much stuff you have in your closet that was used once if ever. If those things were not our masters, then we would have absolutely no problem saying no to them when their urgings differed from the urgings of the Spirit. The very fact that we were tempted by them, much less have given in to them so often, betrays the fact that our loyalties are still divided between "God and mammon."

People talk all of the time about why Christianity in America is on the decline. I think this issue is the reason. We (myself included) have too many masters when Jesus said there could only be one. It's not that those things listed above are bad things or even that they are not necessary things to think about. It's that they have become our masters. Because we have let them become our masters, we have not shown those outside the faith what it means to truly be a follower of Christ, and in many cases, we, ourselves have not learned to be followers of Christ. The result of this is a lack-luster faith that focuses on self instead of others, safety instead of faithful risky obedience, comfort instead of justice, and preference instead of deference. We have watered down the gospel call from "deny yourself and take up your cross and follow me" to "be a better person than the person next to you, punch your attendance card, and talk about going to heaven." And the call has been watered down so much that people don't like the taste of it any more. We have lost our saltiness.

I pray that I'm wrong...but I fear that I'm right as I look around the nation and as I inspect my own life. I pray that God will work a miracle and restore the saltiness to us even after we have lost our flavor because we are so watered down.

I've told you some of my masters. What are yours? If we are going to be followers of Christ, then we must all pick one and forsake all others. Will you?

For the Love of Money...how stupid!- Ecclesiastes 5:10

I loved Kevin's cartoon in the bulletin last week. If you didn't see it, it was a picture of a little boy on Santa's lap. Santa looked a little confused as the boy was saying, "All I want for Christmas is more than my brother."

That's a cute cartoon and we can chuckle at the thought of the truth of that scenario on Christmas morning. It's also an incredibly sad reminder though, that unfortunately many of us never grow out of that line of thinking. We may not verbalize the words exactly like that, and most of us aren't still crawling into Santa's lap with our selfish requests, but deep down the desire to continually just have more keeps us constantly begging life for more...occasionally we even pretend to be sitting in God's lap as a faithful child when we make our self-centered pleas.

How blessed would we all be if we could let Solomon's advice really sink in!?  How tragic for Solomon that it took most of his life before he came back to the truth that he knew when we started out as a man of God.

I'd like to leave the conversation on this one open because it's an incredibly easy to understand principle...and yet so hard to live and to teach. Tie this statement to Jesus' teaching about a rich man getting into the kingdom of heaven and laying up treasures in heaven as opposed to earth because "where your treasure is, there your heart will be also" and we realize that this is a BIG deal!

 "For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs." (1 Timothy 6:10)

Solomon puts it just as bluntly as it can be put. Chasing after riches is absolutely meaningless. We can make every excuse and come up with umpteen million justifications for why we need more money or more stuff, but deep down we know the truth. Those desire are meaningless.

Here's what I'd like to do. I want to open the comments below to suggestions and questions on how to teach ourselves and our children to trust in God instead of in riches. To end the meaningless pursuit of more that begins on Santa's lap and usually doesn't end until the death bed. How do you combat this in yourself? How are you training your children in this? What areas are especially hard that you would like advice about? I won't know many if any of those answers, but there are some incredibly Godly men and women who read this that will. Start that conversation below by clicking the comment button and let's VOW to pursue things that will never be described as "meaningless" !!!

Good News...I'm rich! Proverbs 19:17

"Whoever is kind to the poor, lends to the Lord, and He will reward them for what they have done."

Before we begin to look at the verse for this week, I think it is important for those of us who are reading this to realize just how rich we are. Yes, mentally we understand the fact that most of the world does not live with the luxury that we do...but we are nowhere near the top. In fact, it's easy for us to look at anyone above us with a slight bit of contempt. Even though we might not even vocalize it, some part of us smiles when the rich are brought down. I'm not saying that is right. In fact...it's absolutely wrong and sinful to have an envious spirit like that. However, fight it we must, because the tendency toward that attitude lurks just under the surface.

There's only one problem with that envious line of thinking even if it weren't sinful in and of itself...

I'M ONE OF THE SUPER RICH!

Did you know that I am the 242,608,696th richest person in the world!? That puts me in the top 4.04% of the richest people in the world! I'm not sure exactly how accurate that is, but judging by other statistics that I've seen and heard, I feel like it's pretty close. 

Wanna have some fun? Click here to find out where you rank in the world.

Ok, now that we've had a reality check let's deal with this other issue of who we are definitely not no matter how many times we've stated "I'm starving," or "I'm broke." What about those who actually are poor? Those who are struggling to get enough to eat. Look at this statistic from 2010:

Despite years of progress against hunger, in 2010, it is estimated that 925 million people suffer from hunger. This is due to a sudden spike in global food prices and the onset of a world-wide economic crisis. United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization

Do you know what my reaction to a number as big as 925 million is? I can't comprehend it, therefore I don't react to it. We hear about global poverty all of the time. But that's just the problem. It's global. Even if the Gateses and Buffetts and all of the other 1%ers of the US voluntarily shared their wealth with the poor, would it even make a dent in the lives of 925 million? Probably not. So what could I do with only a small fraction of what they have!? For the entire world? I couldn't even cause a ripple. But I could sure change the path of at least one life. I'm absolutely sure of that.

Now let's talk investments. How is your retirement fund? What does your bank account look like? Have you saved enough for a rainy day? This is not a knock on saving, investing, or being prepared. Other Proverbs give instructions to do just those things. However, when we are talking about the safest investment in the world...it's probably not in a 401k. It's by following Jesus' instructions to lend without expecting to receive anything in return and to give to those who ask (Matthew 5:42, Luke 6:35). The inspired writer of this Proverb (just as a refresher- if the writer is "inspired" it is equivalent to saying that God said it) says that whoever is kind to the poor is "lending to the Lord!" Not only that but "He will reward them for what they have done."  
Are we so foolhardy to think that an investment in the stock market which shows about as much consistency as the weather pattern will give a better return than the God of all creation!?

No, I think the actual problem is that we don't really believe it. 

Either we don't actually believe in God, in the power of God, or that the words he had written in the Bible are actually His words. If we did believe that God is real, that He is as powerful as we say He is, and that the Bible is His word to us then giving to the poor would not be such a burden for us. It wouldn't take a guilt trip of realizing how wealthy we actually are because we would willingly give it away in order to become even more wealthy! That's what this passage means. It's what Jesus' statement about laying up treasures in heaven means. Do we believe it?

I probably can't make much of a difference in the world. After all, I'm "just" in the middle class. But there is absolutely no doubt that you and I can both make a significant impact on the life of at least a handful of people. Let's VOW to keep our eyes open this week for an investment opportunity that God puts in front of us. Let's choose to become richer through Godly investments instead of choosing to protect the immense wealth that we already have. And let's look forward to the reward that God has in store for us.