Luke 16: One Master

When Jesus spoke to his followers regarding the issue of money, he concluded his lesson in Luke 16 with:

“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”

From the perspective of Jesus, it’s God or money, not both. This does not make money evil, but it does clearly state that those who follow Jesus cannot give money priority as a “master.”

In a time when our news headlines repeatedly speak of financial doom, rising gas prices, and increasing unemployment, these words are unpleasant to the ears. Many of us live from paycheck to paycheck or without a paycheck at all. We see little relevance of this teaching for our lives here and now.

But we must consider that those original followers of Jesus had left their jobs to follow Jesus. They were living by faith without a safety net of income to rescue them from financial insecurity. Yet this message of “God or money” was spoken to them.

Why? As Luke’s gospel later highlights, it only took 30 silver coins for Judas Iscariot, one of the Twelve, to abandon Jesus. It wasn’t the price tag that is concerning; it was that he had a price at which point he would sell out.

Do you live with a “for sale” sign regarding your faith in Christ? Is there any dollar amount, small or large, at which point you would deny Jesus and walk away?

We each live with this temptation. Any of the Twelve could have been the one to have left Jesus for money, but only one did. Don’t be that one. Be a follower who gives up everything to pursue Jesus.

You won’t regret it; now or in eternity.

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Dillon Burroughs is the author or co-author of numerous books and is handwriting a copy of the New Testament in 2011 at HolyWritProject.com. Find out more about Dillon at Facebook.com/readdB or readdB.com.