Who do You Serve? God or Money?

I'm sorry I haven't posted in quite some time. This message will mean more as I get into it.

Mt 6:24 "No one can be a slave of two masters, since either he will hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot be slaves of God and of money."

As you may know, I am a mortgage banker by trade advising and helping people secure financing for their home purchases and refinances. I've been practicing in the banking and finance since 1996 when I got my start as a teller with a large National Bank.

The last 18 months we've seen some amazing things happen in banking and in our economy that have caused many huge financial institutions to fold. Now, I am not going to get into all the nuts and bolts of what happened. However, I will say that my mortgage practice has suffered greatly as a result of many of these events. Our income has been very stable over the last 9 years until this last year when we lost nearly half of our earnings in the fall out.

As you can probably imagine, God is working some pretty amazing lessons into our lives. I believe deeply that we are allowed to face challenges of many kinds to strengthen us and give us wisdom to help others in the future who may be facing many of the same challenges we've gone through.

So all that being said, God and Money. With recent events, we've felt the pinch of this passage more than ever before. We've always directed our earnings towards serving others and helping with the ministry until this year. Suddenly we were not earning enough to cover our expenses. Credit card bills grew. Savings accounts dwindled. Car payments, credit cards, student loans, and our vacation home were eating us alive.

See, when we get caught up in credit to create the appearance of blessings in our lives, money starts to slowly add the links of bondage. When we would like to give to help out, but we have to make decisions to pay the car or credit card bills, we are no longer able to serve God with the money. Rather we are serving money. Our job becomes a means to buy back our financial freedom.

Commercial advertising campaigns talk about how "priceless" memories are when we use their credit card. What about the large National Bank's slogan "I want it NOW" for their credit card campaign? Have you figured out "What's in your wallet?"

All of these lies are creating slaves of our nation. National Debt is growing as well as personal debt. Marriages are failing and health problems are growing due to financial stress.

It is time to break the chains of bondage and slavery so we can truly serve God with the abundance of what he has blessed us with rather than running out to create our own blessings and False Fantasy world that is all financed.

Consider this as we part... Ps 37:11 "The humble will inherit the land and will enjoy abundant prosperity."

Be patient and live life out of the abundance of what God has blessed you with. Don't run out and finance away your future. It may feel good for a while, but a time will come when your true master, MONEY, will come calling. Fire Money and serve the one True GOD who gives richly to those who love him. Money promises prosperity but serves up heartache. God truly does deliver on his promises.

May God bless you richly this year in prosperity like never before!