by Roger Alcaraz
Some people will tell me they’re poor, and I sympathize with them. I know what it’s like to have everyone around me showing off their latest toys while I watch in envy. But if we take a step outside of our American borders and compare ourselves to most of the rest of the world, it’s safe to say one thing. We are rich! Even making minimum wage will put you in the top 10% of the world’s richest people.
But is that so bad? Well, no, but it should cause us to meditate deeply on Scripture dealing with money, especially when Jesus said, “ It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God” (Mark 10 25). The person who walked away from Jesus had far less riches than we do. But is this a call for us to sell all of our own possessions and become poor? The truth is, God doesn’t care how much money you have, but he cares about how much you love it.
This is because the love for money and for God are completely at odds with each other. You cannot love both. The pursuit of money, in itself, will never bring you closer to God, but it can very easily take you away from God. I think most of us know this, but how can we protect ourselves from this forbidden love?
Matthew 6:21 answers that very question, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” In saying it this way, Jesus gives us a warning. This is commonly interpreted as “where your treasure is is just a reflection of where your heart is.” And this would be a true statement. But there is another truth–that the things you begin to invest in, those are the things your heart will then chase after. Where your treasure is could be a reflection of where your heart is already, but it could also be a reflection of where your heart is going. In other words, your actions reflect the heart, but they also affect the heart.
Jesus is talking about a slow fade, where you find yourself gradually pursuing more and more of your own pleasure and spending money on empty things that will perish until one day, without realizing it, your heart has followed your actions to the point where the pursuit of material possessions is what defines you. So what can you do to protect yourself from the love of money? The answer is: be a good steward of it and handle it rightly.
An example in my own life happened recently. A few weeks ago, my car was illegally towed and I was out $300. I was also looking at buying a TV for our home around that time. I found one on Amazon and considered buying it. Nothing extravagant, but I was getting tired of having guests come over to watch a movie only to crowd around my laptop saying, “What did he say?” “I can’t see.” “Shhh!”
Guess how much the TV I wanted was? $271. And so you might think that I’d be angry when someone illegally towed my car and essentially robbed me of the TV I wanted. But I wasn’t angry at all. You see, my wife and I give regularly to church as a form of worship but one of the amazing effects of it is that we protect ourselves from the love of money. I’m used to seeing money as not my own and having a loose grip on it. If I had built up a habit of thinking this is MY money, then, yes, I would have been furious. In this scenario, the habits I developed actually protected my heart from loving money.
This isn’t to say that the godlier you are the poorer you should expect to be. When I was in seminary, there was almost a competition amongst the seminarians as to how poor one could be, almost equating being poor to godliness. People would come in eating their Cup-O-Noodles saying, “Fourth straight day eating this.” Another guy would then say, “That’s nothing. I haven’t eaten in a week!”
But Jesus isn’t talking about how much money you have. What he is concerned about is who is your master. And it’s not enough just to say you don’t love money. What do your actions say? Do you give to those in need and to your church? When you give, is it done joyfully?
There’s no command in the New Testament for how much you need to be giving, but a principle for giving is that it’s done sacrificially, as seen in the book of Acts. People sold their homes so that all the needs of the church were met. We are also called to give joyfully, as Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 9:7, “Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” And the promise spoken after this verse is that we can give joyfully and without worrying because God will supply us with all of our needs.
Now I know it can be difficult to give up your money when you are a collegian and you’re not exactly raking in the big bucks. But I would say now, more than ever, you have an opportunity to worship God with your money. The way you handle your money is a form of worship. That’s why at our church, we sing songs of worship during the offering time, because how we give is just a continuation of worship. For a collegian with a lot of bills and not a lot of income, your capacity to worship with your money is even greater. In Luke 21:1-4, Jesus saw a poor widow offer a tiny amount, but it was all she had and yet Jesus commended her, even though she gave less monetarily.
If you say that you want the gospel to reach the ends of the earth and the people in your life, but your bank statement indicates that all you really care about is how your stomach is filled and how nice your clothes are, then your words are empty.
My encouragement to you is that you should give. Even if it is difficult, even if it’s not a lot, do so joyfully knowing:
- God will provide for all of your needs,
- as you give, you’re laying for yourself eternal treasures,
- it is an act of worship unto God, and
- it can be the very thing that saves you from the love of money.
With all these blessings in store, it’s no wonder why Jesus says it is better to give than to receive.