the things you choose to be

How alluring is the call of money?  It’s something most of us are tempted with from time to time.  I lay awake last night til 1:30 thinking about lots of stuff, but among them was money or the lack of it.  There are so many projects that we’d like to do around the house, so many causes we’d like to give to, so many opportunities we wish we could afford our kids.  All of them take money.  If someone gave me $100,000 dollars tomorrow, I already have it spent and not on anything frivolous.

But as God is faithful to do in my life, He brings me back to reality and what matters.  My devotion this morning (after spending the night obsessing over money) was out of Matthew 6:19-24.  Look at these 2 verses from it:

“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” verse 21

“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.” verse 24

Nailed again.  I love the fact that when I started this devotional last week, I had no idea that money would be on my mind last night or that today’s entry would hit me right between the eyes.  God is good.

Actually the parts that challenged me the most were verses 22-23:

“The eye is the lamp of the body.  So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness.”

I’ve read this passage many times before, but never quite understood what this statement had to do with money.  John Piper gave me the heads up today.  A healthy eye sees God as infinitely more valuable than money.  It sees and assesses what is truly desirable and what is undesirable.  When I can come to that view of God, my life will be full of light.

Some might say that I have to come to that conclusion and lean on the “God crutch” because I don’t have a lot of money.  But I could pursue money and make a lot of it; I have the intelligence, background, education, and connections to do so.  But there is something deep inside me that knows how that would end.  I would never be satisfied.

Gracious Father of light,

give me eyes to see Your worth.

Heal my blindness.  Save me from the

deadly disease of seeing the world

as worth more than its Maker.

Restore the capacity of my heart to cherish

infinite beauty and savor infinite sweetness.

Deliver me from the deadening effects

 of thinking this short life is the main thing.