God And Money

This quote from the Bible is well-known:  "You cannot serve both God and money," [1] but money has become ubiquitous in society.  No one escapes it except the very poor [2] or the few who choose to live in the wild. [3]

First question:  Are the poor who are obviously not serving money spending time serving God?  That I cannot answer because I cannot see into their hearts and minds.

Next question: Are those who have money saved up obviously serving money and therefore not serving God?  The answer is both yes and no.  Having money, one has to deal with people and the government.  In other words, the money one has does not belong to him completely because if it did , he would not have to deal with people or the government if he chooses not to, but he must.  He has to deal with people because he has to work for it, save it,  invest it, spend it, account for it, pay taxes on it and so on.

Therefore, having to spend so much time in dealing with money, one is not serving God, certainly not on a dedicated basis, especially when one, driven by greed desires to make more and more of it, and driven by need spends time and energy dealing with envious, greedy and cunning people who want take more money than what they justly deserve. [4]

On the other hand, when one who is not obsessed with money deals with it from a detached point of view, acting only as a conduit in accounting for it, and in preserving its value to do good by creating opportunities for others to make their living and reinvesting the profits of such ventures to generate even more earning opportunities for those who need jobs to support themselves and their families.  In that way, one is not only dealing with money but also serving God simultaneously, so long as one prays for help, never losing sight of one's ultimate goal, which is to have inner peace while on earth and eternal salvation in Heaven. [5]


[1] http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+6%3A24&version=NIV
[2] This link shows photos of  slums in India.  (Notice in some of the pictures show a single child smiling, which proves my point in previous posts that the gift of life is a blessing.)
[3] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/vietnam/10231861/Vietnamese-father-and-son-found-living-in-a-treehouse-for-40-years.html
[4] What about donating it?  Is that not serving God?  In a way yes, but that is not always the case because serving God is not about throwing money at charities and reducing guilt.  Serving God is about serving your family, your neighbor and the poor with love and with time.  Serving God means loving God in the way Jesus loves His Mother, His disciples and all the sinners.  That is easier said than done of course, but not impossible.  Making repeated efforts doing so is part of the battle against Satan.
[5] When one is dealing with money, even with detachment, it will inevitably attract those who are envious, greedy and cunning, trying every which way to get at it, including stealing it, taking it by brute force or by the force of law.  In spite of all of the evil that money attracts, one must keep the focus on Christ, on the peace that Christ gives us, the peace that begins in the mind and comes to rest in the heart, primarily by praying on the one hand and secondarily by doing whatever earthly that is necessary to mitigate the forces that stresses the body and disturbs the mind on the other.  By keeping the focus on the teachings of Jesus, one must always be reminded of His forgiveness.  Only in forgiveness can one attain peace that Jesus gives.