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The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness! 

“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”

Matthew 6:22-24

Jesus spent a lot of time talking about money—how to steward it, how to tithe it, how to be generous with it, and so on. But what’s interesting to me is that he also warns about it being a master over us. 

One of my favorite authors, Tony Evans, says this, “Few things can distract us as effectively as money. Having money is not the problem, though. The danger is when money has you and becomes more important to you than spiritual things.” 

How true is that statement? We surely cannot be devoted to both money and God because they demand completely different postures. The lure of money can make us think that the more we make, the better off we will be—which can result in money owning us. 

But God calls us to something different. He calls us to Him. To be in His presence. To be in a posture of surrender to Him. Which results in experiencing His fullness. Something no amount of money can ever provide.

Colossians 3:2 says to set your mind on things above, not earthly things. That’s heavenly things, spiritual things. This is important because it motivates us to keep our eyes on the right things. It helps us to keep our focus on the Lord. 

Jesus tells us in Romans 8:14 that the mature children of God are “moved by the impulses of the Holy Spirit.” But to be able to sense these impulses, we need to be looking and listening to God—not to our fears or our earthly desire for money. Instead, we can trust God’s promises for provision (even if provision looks different from what we would like).   

The Spirit will lead us to our next step if we let Him!

Next Steps 

Take a moment to bring yourself into God’s presence and ask His Holy Spirit to reveal to you any ways that you may have a love for money.  Ask for His help to trust Him and to let His Spirit guide you in this area.  

Going Deeper

An excellent way to try to grasp the full meaning of the Scriptures is to compare translations. Don’t worry, we’re not suggesting you go out and buy a bunch of Bibles in different translations. Simply pull up the YouVersion Bible app or visit Biblegateway.com, and you can compare the translations. What new insights stand out to you after you read one or two other translations?