Money the root of all-evil
People often pray for their need of money. This seems to be an honest need with most things considered. We have to go into the other awareness concept to consider this from how God is trying to work with us. Let us begin our journey to walk with Christ.
Jas: 2:5: Hearken, my beloved brethren, Hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him?
The poor of this world have need of the Father and the Son. The rich of this world are filling themselves with all that they can imagine. They can buy almost anything and they seek more, for the serving of self can never be filled. It is much the same as hell. All evil taskmasters expand their borders so they can never be filled. They always need more.
The purpose of this life is to serve the Christ in obedience. We mistake the ideals of the flesh for the walk of the spirit. We feel that we could be better Christians if we only had more money. Money in and of itself is not evil, it is the idol that is the root of all evil. People mistake the need to correct things in their lives as Christians for the need to continue in the wrong direction but have need of money. It seems to be fairly good rationalization.
1Sa: 15:22: And Samuel said, Hath the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.
We find in life that we can continue in most anything if we have the financial backing to do so. Let us consider from life application:
The first example will be a mother that just needs a little better financing so she can take care of a few things. This woman is retired and lives on a very small income. She has a daughter who is married and a son who is almost married. She has very limited medical coverage. She is divorced and living alone. This sounds like it could be a lot of people we know in life and with a little better financial planning this person would be happier we think. Lets look farther into this little picture and see why she was not able to receive more wealth.
This woman lives in her own home and is in need of a few repairs such as;
She also has a few other bills that are a problem;
Again this could be a lot of different people that we all know, but what is the answer to this. Does God want people to live with problems that cannot be resolved?
Let us go farther into this picture. The son is an alcoholic and has one major problem after another. He is in need of a few hundred dollars to keep his rent paid. If he can just get through this problem he'll be OK. The daughter has always been OK except that her problem was that she is also short on funding so she is always remorgageing her house and sneaking credit card accounts that her husband doesn't know about. All this family needs is a little financial aid from God and they will make it. Let us consider a little more.
The son is living with a woman and she can't work since she is such a bad alcoholic and drug user. The son makes very good money but runs short supporting both of them. The daughter's life is in order but she always has had a problem with money, but she will not let her husband handle the financing.
Why doesn't God do something with these people? Let us see what would be the outcome with more money.
This sounds pretty good so far, but what about the daughter? The mother would bail her out and everything would be good, right? No! The daughter has put money as her most important thing in life since she will not place herself under obedience to God and live within her means. She would have to manage her money instead of using it like the government and just spending. Since the daughter has this problem she has placed money above her family and money is now an evil taskmaster. This is God trying to tell her something that she does not want to hear. If she cannot give her money over to God, he is not going to make her financing straighten out. Neither is her marriage going to be all that it could have been since money is her main love. She will have an empty life no matter what she does from a Christian's point of view since she has an idol. Do you really think money is her problem?
What if the mother bailed out the son? What for? He is receiving his just reward for the way he wants to live. God is righteous and he is not going to promote self every time we cry. He wants us to come to him and be obedient. The son will quit working and just retire to drinking if he had the money. God has given this person an evil taskmaster of alcohol.
What the mother really needed was Christ and to implement his principles in her life. This would have allowed her to understand she could not have helped her children by giving them money but told them the error of their ways. Their financial problems are their rewards for their own choices in their own lives. They do deserve them and correcting the visible problem only promotes more trouble. The answer for the family is Christ. This would eliminate the son's alcohol and make him a stable place where the mother would enjoy being. The daughter would find true life in serving the Lord instead of her need for money. This would allow the family to find true happiness and money wouldn't be a problem since life is full.
Another example would be the case of a family consisting of a father, mother and two sons. The family is in a Christian walk except for the youngest son. They are short on funds since they are trying to pay for the college for the oldest son. The younger son does not wish to apply himself at anything and the parents wish they could afford more so there would not be as many problems. The eldest son seems to have bad relationships, but cannot afford to keep them going since they take advantage of him all the time. Could money be the answer? No!
If the parents had the funding they would have given more to the eldest son and he in turn could have afforded a bad relationship. The girls he chooses are lazy and have no desire to do anything in life. But with enough money he would not have broke the relationship since it would not have been a problem for him if his girl didn't help out in the relationship. The younger son will continue to travel in his direction as long as the parents have enough funding to help. This could take some time to allow him to grow. Is money the problem or is the problem that they misuse money and don't follow Christian living as much as they should? You see God wants us to turn to him and live as lights not spoiled brats.
Example 3: We have a person that is highly gifted and has started a business. They do not have much work presently and are always in a financial bind. This person is a Christian and is trying to the Lord's will, but has asked the Lord on several occasions to take care of the financial burdens. So far we find that this person is very much in need and the Lord should help, so now we can go a little farther to see why life is as it is. In the type of work they do they are very skilled, but they would rather not work. They use the Lord as an opportunity to enable themselves and say that they are just being persecuted since they have troubles.
Christians are to be a light in this world and the Lord will not use you if worldly people look better since they apply themselves. If the Lord gave this person money they would go farther into hiding from reality. The Lord wants us to be obedient to him and then we will have all that we need. Will we need as much money when we become obedient to Christ? Probably not since we will be serving the Lord instead of ourselves. The Lord is not interested in whether we are happy in our present state of being, but whether we will end up in heaven or hell. We are here for only a moment in time to choose and to learn Christianity.
All too often the need for money is only a mask to cover the sickness that is beneath. We must consider the sickness such as having a perfect house, perfect car, perfect dog and perfect little life. We are not going to be blessed so we can keep up with the Jones, but so that we will become a spiritual light. Our Lord changed the rules in the New Testament so that we are not to receive worldly rewards but salvation. How great a gift our Lord has given us. Job only wished for the day that a mediator would be between God and man, and we know his name is Jesus the Christ. Money shows the heart of man and this is not to most peoples advantage. Let us seek our Lord and what he gives us we will find sufficient in Christ.
