Trapped“He who loves silver will not be satisfied with silver; nor he who loves abundance, with increase. This also is vanity.” (Ecclesiastes 5:10) In the 2002 thriller Trapped, Charlize Theron the mother of the kidnap victim finally turns the table on her kidnappers Kevin Bacon and Courtney Love. We may not be the victim of a kidnapping, but many of us are susceptible to the trap of money in our lives. The Bible tells us that if we are having our basic needs met like food, shelter and clothing, we should be content with what we have. (1 Timothy 6:6) In the story of the rich young ruler, regarding what he must do to inherit the Kingdom, Jesus told him to give away his possessions and follow Him.Jesus was not saying this is what we must do, only the rich young ruler, because his greatest problem was he couldn’t let go. (Matthew 19:16-22) For us, it could be something else He would ask to give up like houses, land, wine, women and song, but not without giving us a hundredfold return and eternal life. (Matthew 19:29) Jesus was not against wealth for it is God who gives us the power to get wealth (Deuteronomy 8:18), but against the dependence on wealth, for dependence on anything other than God was idolatrous and therefore evil. We are to be the master of money and use it well to bring lost souls to the Kingdom of God and bless others, and not let money or worse, the love of money which is the root of all kinds of evil (1 Timothy 6:10), traps us. In the parable of the sower (Matthew 13:3-23), Jesus described four kinds of people and also gave us another example of the problem money creates. Like the proverbial frog in the boiling pot, if we are not careful we gradually begin to acquire things Madison Avenue wants us to buy and become addicted to material gain. We try to keep up with the Joneses with a bigger SUV, a prettier wife or larger house, and before we know it, we are worrying about how to take care of what we acquire. Our emphasis becomes what we own instead of our relationship with God. Many of us have a cold heart toward God. We still go to church on Sundays, but we have no power since God is no longer the king of our lives, much less of our money. Our Bibles are mostly unread and our prayers have no effect because we rob God as we withhold the tithes and offerings that should go to evangelize the lost and build up the Body of Christ so that God gets the glory. The greater independence money apparently gives us, the less dependence on God we think we need, but nothing can be further from the truth. Money Talks, Jesus talked much about money because He knew how much of a trap it was for us to let go and that money’s ultimate purpose is to be used to preach the gospel to every creature. (Mark 16:15)Copyright © 2002 Eddy Ministries. All rights reserved. Subscribe/Unsubscribe: eddyn@earthlink.net
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