Friday, November 30 2007

The #1 Competitor

Mt. 6:24 – ‘No one can serve two masters…you cannot serve God and money.’

As Christians, we’ve been taught and so we know that our #1 spiritual enemy is the devil. But no one has really opened the veil on who’s supposed to be the #1 competitor for our passion for God. Some have thought the passion for pleasure, fame, power, and even our loved ones – such as our families. But Jesus comes in with no hesitation, in his famous Sermon on the Mount, saying that the #1 competitor for our passion for God is our passion for money. Not the devil, not our family, not fame, not power, not pleasure – but money.

Money has a tremendous capacity to steal our hearts away from our commitment to our ultimate provider – God. The reason being is because our hearts often times mistakenly identify money as the ultimate source of life – the giver of life. True that money can buy us food, house, clothes, gadgets, entertainments, and medicines, but money can’t buy the very thing that most people want and need – life.

No doubt that we all need money to sustain our physical being here in this world – food, education, gas, homes, etc. But we ought not to forget our ultimate commitment to our master who is the real giver and provided of life – God. It is not the money, but our passion for it. It is not that we don’t need money, but we need to remind ourselves time and time and again that our need exceeds than just the need for physical being, because ultimately we need God.