1 Timothy 6 Devotion Sharing0

Money can give me a sense of false sense of security about my life. In practical life, money is so important, not only for basic things like food and shelter and even for more abstract things like convenience and options. The person with the money is going to be able to provide for his needs and protect himself better because money gives you access to more things. A good cushion in my bank account can make me feel like I have a lot more resources to throw against whatever unexpected troubles that might come my way. But what all of this makes me blind to is that fact there is so much of life that money cannot buy. A desire to get rich makes me only look at earth needs and earthly realities, and makes me forget the spiritual realities that are far more important and for which money can’t be of much help. The feeling of having money can make me feel secure in the world, but it can deaden my sense of spiritual need, my need to be rescued from my pride and lust and bitterness, my need to depend on God for daily spiritual sustenance, my need for meaningful relationships and for love. This is why the desire to get rich can be so dangerous, because it blinds me to my need for God, and if my mind is so well practice in looking to money for security, then slowly I would be deadened to my sense of needing God.

Another false illusion of money has to do with the false air of significance that it gives. In our world, so many things are measured in terms of dollars, and these dollar amounts even get applied to me as a person. As an employee my time is supposedly much less valuable than the CEO, whose time is more expensive and therefore more valuable. All this can give me false ideas about my value and worth as a person, as though having more money or the ability to produce more money makes me more or less important as a person. And the more I immerse myself in that kind of concerns and calculations about money, the more it can erode my sense of significance as God’s child and God’s ambassador in the world. Being God’s child means that regardless of how I perform or how messed up or how much I still struggle with sin, I am precious in God’s sight and I am of Jesus’ worth, because he was willing to purchase my soul with his blood. That is the glory and dignity I have his child far exceeds a dollar amount that people can put on me. And as a Christian, the things I do for God is of eternal worth and their true value cannot be known until I get to heaven. So, with all these things, money is not the proper measure at all, and being overly concerned about money whittles away my sense of being significant in God. This is why all the more important that I guard myself against the false illusions that money can give me but instead strive to keep my focus on the heavenly realities as that is where my true security and true significance lies.