Money
“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.”
Matthew 6:24
Facing the horror of raising support is enough to make the boldest Christian second-guess their calling. Looking at the monetary cost of any calling causes us to come face to face with an age-old enemy; Mammon.
Money does not Rule God
In Matthew 6, Jesus refers to Mammon as a competing God. He said “you cannot serve both God and Mammon. Mammon wants your allegiance and fealty. It wants you to believe in its all powerful influence and it wants you to depend on it for your life and purpose. But here is the truth about God. He is not bound by money. He is not beholden to it. His purposes are not dependent on money. Intellectually, we know this is true, but our hearts often betray us. We tell God, “I can’t obey you because I don’t have enough money”; or “I will obey you if you supply the needed finances”. These statements sound reasonable to us, but we are actually admitting that God’s will is dependent upon money; that Mammon controls God’s will. But that is a lie.
God’s Provision
I have experienced a need to travel, but had no resources, yet the flight tickets were provided and I traveled. I needed a car, but did not have the finances, yet a car was provided. A prophetic word said that God would provide me a house, but I did not have the finances, yet I now own it. It’s true that He uses money for His purposes, but he is not bound, limited or controlled by it. Money is merely another tool in the hands of the King.
Generosity is one of the keys given to us to defeat the power of Mammon. The willingness to give generously is a refusal to allow money to have power over us. Dawn and I live by this principle and PI tries to model this truth in all that we do. We have seen God accomplish things over and over again that required much more monetary provision than we had. Dependence on money is such a limiting world view. Let’s live beyond it.