Week 23—Monday Matthew 19:23-29
Matthew 19:23-29
SERVE GOD AND MAMMON,
OR SERVE GOD WITH MAMMON?
We come now to a central verse in the consideration of inner division: “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 mammon” (Matt. 6:24). This verse touches the nerve center of the spiritual problem of the Christian. We live in a society where to have is to be. And to have not is to be not. It is the atmosphere we breathe from childhood to old age. It is our native air. No wonder this verse sounds strangely foreign. And yet how realistic, for if anything is plain in the actual working out of life it is this: Things and their possession do not guarantee, or even produce, happiness. A man stood up in one of our Ashrams at the time of the Open Heart and said, “I am a businessman, successful, but unhappy and confused.” He had everything and nothing. For if you have everything on the outside and nothing within, you have nothing. “I’ve learned how to make money, but I’ve not yet learned how to live,” said a sad millionaire after a musician performed on a huge pipe organ he had installed in his palace of a home. The music temporarily lifted him out of his depression. Finally, he put a pistol to his head and blew out his brains.
And yet the pursuit of happiness through mammon goes on from disillusioned age to age. And the voice of Jesus keeps saying, “You cannot serve God and mammon.” And yet people try—and fail inevitably. The only people who can deal with mammon are the people who serve God with mammon. It is in their hands and not in their hearts. They set mammon to work in service. Then mammon becomes an instrument of the Kingdom. The only way to deal with mammon is to take out of it what you really need and dedicate the rest for the needs of others. Then mammon is no longer mammon—it is converted mammon.
O Lord Jesus, I offer to you all I am and all I possess. Cleanse both from selfishness and dedicate both to you and your Kingdom, and to you and your Kingdom alone. For I would be mastered by nothing but you. For your mastery is freedom. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: I can possess my possessions, or my possessions will possess me. I make the choice.