The Love of Money

 

Money can’t buy us everything. Money has value until one chooses to misuse it. There’s only so far it can take us in the journey of life. Money may can buy happiness, but it can’t buy joy or peace. Happiness is a temporary feeling, but joy and peace only comes from the Lord. One minute a kid is happy he has an ice cream cone but as soon as he drops it on the floor, he’s sad. Money may fix a problem for a little while but how you feel can’t be fixed …just suppressed and stored away in a box of memories in your brain ready to remind you of how miserable you were in that past moment. The problem is fixed but the void in your heart can’t be fulfilled by a dollar or a million dollars because it’s an external exchange when your heart requires an internal change. It’s like a baby trying to fit a circle block into a triangle shaped hole. Money simply won’t fit something only God can fill or places in you only God can reach.

 

 

In other scenarios money can’t buy happiness. If you’re not content when you’re in a broke situation, then you’re not going to be satisfied when you’re rich. You’ll forever be in a cycle to obtain more until eventually you can literally see greed on your face.

 

 

Money may buy a yacht, but it can’t buy a secret (or so the chief priests, elders, and Judas Iscariot thought). Money may buy you everything on this earth temporarily, but it can’t buy your eternal life. Money can buy treasures on this earth, but it can’t buy treasures in heaven. Money may buy a surgery, but it can’t buy a person’s life when they lose it. Money is simply a tool, but we use it as one would a car door. We open and shut it until eventually the handle breaks off and its value decreases. The more we mishandle it the more meaningless it becomes in our life, but a lot of us worship it so much it looks like we’ve won a gold medal in the olympics every time a dollar touches our hand because the void in our hearts are starving and sees money as candy to fill our sweet tooth.

 

 

There’s only a matter of time before money comes to an end, and all we’ll have left is either life or death. We can spend eternity chasing after money, but money is simply an object used to make a purchase. A lot of us obey money to the point where we start to see people as dollar signs. We sniff people as if we’re a grey hound dog looking for a doggy treat.

 

 

People use money to buy people’s friendship, relationship, loyalty, a vote if running for office, or ally.

 

 

If one had a choice to choose money or love, they would choose money because love is hard to find and money is easy to use. Money is a babe magnet. It attracts people to you that were never there for you when you were empty handed. It attracts those that are in your life to use you as a bank account. The moment you take away your money the moment you’ll see people’s true intentions toward you.

 

 

Some people love to be a walking bank or used because then they’ll feel loved or accepted while others aren’t able to even come close to a bank. And while those people’s pockets may be empty, they’re hearts have a chance to be pure because they’re in a vulnerable state of need. That is why Christ says it’s hard for someone rich to be born in the Kingdom of God but better for the poor. Those who are rich was made by money. The money made them they didn’t make the money. The money gave them a certain image, status, or title and without it, if it is taken away…the people who surrounds them only because of the image they’re carrying would immediately see them as nothing.

 

Just imagine giving up your arm candy, crowd of fans or followers, Instagram likes, everything that surrounded you because of the money, not you; and choosing to follow Jesus. That is extremely hard especially for those who lived that lifestyle for years. Their identity they’ve built on that foundation would become so unknown to them it’s almost scary. They’re feelings of acceptance would instantly turn into rejection once Jesus comes into the picture. Here’s what I love about Christ though, He said with man it’s impossible but with God all things are possible. With the power of God those who serve money as their master, that can be broken in the name of Jesus alone!

 

 

Money either changes you or you change money. Money either controls you or you control money. You either serve money or money serves you. But money can never be a replacement for God.

 

 

This goes back to the chief elders in the Bible. They tried to buy their soldiers and their group of follower’s loyalty. They tried to destroy the power of God. The same people who claimed to worship God were really doing the works of the devil. They cared more about their image than the image of God. They tried to destroy Jesus’s reputation by using money. In Matthew 27:11-15 it talks about how the chief priests and elders devised a plan and gave a large sum of money to the soldiers to tell a lie to the people about Jesus’ death saying that Jesus’ disciples stole Him away while people were asleep.

 

 

They tried to use money to cover up the truth but in reality, all it did was distort they’re reality. They thought they got away with it but now they were living in a delusion, hiding in the dark, and money was their master. Money sometimes distorts our perspective of reality when being used wrongly, we feel like we’re on top of the world and in control of everyone and everything. Those who are willing to be controlled may not love being told what to do but when there’s money on the table the controllers commands go in one ear and out the other. They’re willing to play the role as long as they’re getting paid for it not because someone is using them selfishly.

 

 

Judas Iscariot on the other hand betrayed Jesus for money. The elders, chief priests, and high priest all schemed to arrest Jesus secretly and kill Him. They used Judas to point Jesus out when the time came.  He was willing to give up an opportunity for a lifetime of being a child of God for thirty pieces of silver coins. All that he was taught by Jesus went in one ear and out the other as soon as he received that money. He, just like the rest of the others, joined their delusional plan of “killing Jesus and getting away with murder”.

 

 

Although the chief priests and elders were confident in their plan with moving forward and executing Jesus, reality for Judas kicked in when he saw Jesus being condemned and how He was being treated. Seeing Jesus that way led him to feel remorseful about what he had done, and he instantly regretted it. He returned the money back to the chief priests and confessed his sins unto them. They were looking at Judas as the evil one and those who bought his alliance turned on him. The same money they gave him they saw as unclean once Judas confessed that he sinned against Jesus. They were so disillusioned that they couldn’t see that they were sinning too but because of their self righteousness they looked down on Judas and guilt tripped him.

 

Judas was so remorseful it led him to throw the money in the temple and he went away to the land he purchased and hanged himself.  Judas’ greed led to his death instead of to Jesus, the One who saves, to ask for forgivenesses. His manipulators made him feel like it was all his fault, that he was the only one who betrayed the innocent man, Jesus.

 

 

The crazy part is the same money the priests had taken from the Temple to pay Judas to turn in Jesus all of a sudden became too dirty for them to put it back in the Temple. In Matthew 27 they stated, “it is against the law to put this into the treasury, since it is blood money”. The same money they gave Judas was now “blood money”. They blamed Judas and made him seem like the evil one and denied they’re evil deeds as well. They were so self righteous they took the money that Judas used for evil and used it for “good” by using his money to buy a field and turn it into a burial place for foreigners.

 

 

They were hypocrites at its finest. They were obeying the part of the law where the blood money couldn’t be returned to the treasury but ignored the law that forbade murder. Which they were literally planning to kill Jesus since the beginning of His ministry. Something they were too blind to see because they were too busy trying to cover their guilt with ‘good deeds’ and law keeping. They were picking and choosing what applied to them and projected themselves onto sinners.

 

 

When money is used wrong it leads to feelings of guilt, shame, a false reality, and suicide. In this case money was used to try to cover up the wrongdoing but what they tried to hide God revealed through the death and resurrection of His Son, Jesus Christ.

 

 

The chief priests tried to cover up something temporarily but when their life came to an end money won’t be there to pay for the punishment of their sins when God judges us all. God wasn’t lying when He said the love of money is the root of all evil. Our love for God should outweigh our love for money because money is a creation just like us, but God is the Creator, and His Word endures forever! When everything passes away the only thing left standing will be His Word.

 

 

Money may can be used to make a purchase on this earth, but God purchased us eternally by the blood of Jesus Christ. Money isn’t worth losing your salvation for. God has given us authority over our finances, not the other way around and it shouldn’t be used to manipulate other people for our selfish agendas. Money is valuable but not more valuable than Christ dying for us on the cross.