Money
By David Branker
Matthew 6:24 NLT
No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.Jesus made it very clear who is on the other end of the “money” rope. The KJ Bible uses an Aramaic word for money in this passage – MAMMON. Mammon was a Syrian deity – a god.
When Jesus uses the Aramaic term mammon to refer to wealth, he is giving it a personal and spiritual character. When he declares, “You cannot serve God and mammon” (Mt.6:24 KJV), he is personifying mammon as a rival god… Mammon is a power that seeks to dominate us. Richard Foster; The Challenge of the Disciplined Life; ©1985; HarperCollins Publishers; p.25-26
Money – in and of itself (currency), is not evil. As a matter of fact, money can be used for some pretty outstanding causes. God blesses us financially so that we can become a financial blessing to others through having a generous heart.
The idea of money as a competitor for first place in our lives is where we find its potential danger. If we allow money to grab hold of our hearts, then we’ve opened the door to all kinds of dangerous influences.
If money – and all that money can buy – becomes the power in your life, it will eventually overshadow everything else in your life with greed & selfish ambition. The love for money can lead to all kinds of evil. God, our Father, is obviously not against us having things, even nice things. What He is against is things having us. The real concern with money or the things money can buy is not what we hold, but how tightly we hold it. It’s not what we’ve gotten, but how we got it.
How do we counteract that? We make our money a servant to the one to whom our hearts really belong. Simply put, we put God first in the way we use and spend our money through tithes and offerings. Seek God today for what this means to you personally and practically, and let’s use our money to serve God.
David
Comments
5 Responses to “Money”
Leave a Reply
Does it make sense that my husband & I are beginning our tithe this month and we are so very excited! Please understand that the excitement isn’t because we had a few hundred dollars just laying around every month, but we are so very excited that we have been called to honor God in this and ANY way. Let me put it this way…People tend to fear the unknown. We like things in black and white, leaving no room for guessing. We personally feel as though a huge weight has been lifted off of us. We no longer have to make a decision as to how much is “good.” We are simply going to give God the first of each of our ten “tomatoes”, GLADLY!
Answer: Should you give tithes or just give as you purpose in your heart?
I will answer this question Wed. nite and absolutely believe that giving should be from the heart. However, tithing is not a false doctrine. In fact, I believe it is an essential principle and doctrine that provides the new testament believer a starting point or an initial goal in their giving. Our obedience in the New Testament is far and above any requirement in the Old Testament.
What about those of us who due to previous bad stewardship/divorce years ago are now so in debt we have little to give?
Are you saying we should tithe and not pay our bills and that God will make up the difference?
I haven’t seen anything in the Bible about that, except the borrower is slave to the lender (which we are until we pay off all of our debt.)
I’d like to share my experience, strength and hope with Anonymous and encourage her spouse to visit the James Gang on Thursday night at Church. He may not want to be told or even suggested to go to a meeting, so you can print out my message of personal experience and hope and leave it for him and let God do the rest. It meets from 7:15 – 8:15 and has helped people with addictions have a new life. I was a hopeless alcoholic and with the help of groups like the James Gang have been sober for many years. Getting sober opened my eyes to many other things in my life that were grossly out of balance and I eventually quit smoking, became a Christian, and learned how to get out of debt. But it all had to start somewhere and for me it stated in AA.I’d also encourage her to visit an Alanon Meeting for herself to give her some hope and encouragement.
I have asked this before, but did not receive an answer (and probably won’t this time either)
We find that the Bible clearly, repeatedly, throughout the New Testament emphasizes and encourages giving, giving from the heart, give as every man purposes in his own heart (not 10%); if you see a brother in need, you are to give to him, not just say, “God bless you,” and send him away hungry, “it is more blessed to give,” “give and it shall be given unto you.”
But religion and religious pastors have in practice changed it to, “tithe, and it shall be given unto you, shaken together, pressed down, and running over.”
We believe with all of our hearts in giving! When God directs our gifts, we are able to give cheerfully with great joy, especially when we see it is going directly to a specific need in
someone’s life.
Jesus said we are blessed according to what we give; our seed given is blessed according to what we sow.
As we read the New Testament, charity absolutely
abounds in examples of giving and encouragement to give; here is one from Phil. 4:15. “…when I departed from Macedonia no church communicated with me concerning giving and receiving but you.” (This was a perfect place, by the way, for Paul to quote Genesis or Malachi and remind the Philippians to tithe.)
In 2 Corinthians where Paul instructs on giving, seed sowing, and blessing, he never mentions a tithe; the context is about giving.
In regard to tithing, we have examples of Abraham, Jacob, commands from the Law, prophets such as Malachi, the rich young ruler along with the Pharisees interviewed by Jesus, and the passage in Hebrews 7:4-9, which recounts the Abrahamic and Levitical tithes as examples of passages where a tithe is mentioned either before or as under the Law of Moses.
In addition to tithing, there are important parallel themes associated with Abraham’s life mentioned in the New Testament: faith, circumcision, blood sacrifice, the Laws given
at Sinai, and the promises of God’s great blessing.
In his faith works, Abraham was a circumciser as well as a tither. Galatians and Hebrews both include passages about the faith of Abraham and the promises of God to him and his seed.
If we only read the verses that say “Abraham paid tithes” before the Law, it seems correct to teach tithing to the Church.
If types and shadows mean anything, paying a faith tithe to Melchizedek as Christ pre-incarnate may not hold the road to Jesus’
ministry because Jesus received no tithes!
The modern Church has selected only one of Abraham’s works and not the other, as circumcision was also before the
Law.
We are taught that we are the children of Abraham, yet God did not direct Abraham to tithe, but God commanded him regarding circumcision.
A careful reading of the passage tells us that Abraham initiated the gift of his tithe. Three works that Abraham observed were all rolled forward and confirmed into the Law. There can be no denial of this.
Why, then, has only tithing been enjoined as a practice from before the Law?
Who determined we could be so selective when it comes to the practices of faith from before the Law?
Galatians 3 plainly states that the covenant came before the Law. (16) “Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made… (17) And this I say, [that] the covenant, that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after.”
Hebrews 7 bears witness to the precept of the incorporation of tithing and circumcision embodied
and codified in the Old Testament Law. (4) “Now consider how great this man [was] unto whom even the patriarch Abraham gave the tenth of the spoils. (5) And verily they that are of the
sons of Levi, who receive the office of the priesthood, have a commandment to take tithes of the people according to the law, that is, of their brethren, though they come out of the loins of Abraham.”
We say we are under grace, not Law, so why do we quote Malachi and Leviticus regarding tithing and the laws and ordinances given to Old Testament Israel?
The phrase, all the tithes, in Malachi had far more to do with agricultural livestock and produce. And all the tithes not only meant
the Israelites first fruits, but it meant the numerous other tenths they were to pay.
Included with tithes were mandated offerings,
vows, sacrifices, burnt offerings, and an every third year tithe on top of the rest.
If we claim tithing was before the Law and is applicable to the Church, why is Malachi 3:10 quoted as that was written under the law ?
I bet if our church quit teaching the false doctrine of tithing and empowered everyone to ‘give as every man purposes in his own heart’ we would have more money than we knew what to do with.