Heads or Tails?
Heads or Tails?
Monday, February 12, 2018
The ultimate goal of Christianity is to love God with all your heart, soul, and mind. For some believers, the goal is to be good or to be holy. The problem with these two mindsets is that absent from a relationship with God you can never truly be good or holy. The more we surrender our hearts to God the closer we draw to him, and the closer we draw to him the closer we draw to the source of all goodness and holiness. Being good or being holy is not something we can produce on our own; it is the result of God’s work in our life. This is the reason why the ultimate goal of Christianity is to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind.
There exists another group of Christians who believe that the ultimate goal of Christianity is prosperity and if they don’t believe it they sure do act as if it were so. Many of them dedicate their whole life to the pursuit of acquiring and maintaining wealth. They even have entire organizations dedicated to promulgating the gospel of personal prosperity. Just like being good or being holy however, true prosperity can only come from God. Before you draw any conclusions, I want to clarify that I am not anti-prosperity. What I am is cautious because if the ultimate goal of Christianity is to love God with all our heart, mind, and soul, then the greatest challenge to accomplishing the prosperity goal will be the pursuit and maintaining of wealth. Therefore the ultimate question is a matter of the heart; are you pursuing God’s wealth or are you pursuing the God of all wealth?
“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.” – Matthew 6:24 NIV
God’s chief competitor for your heart is not the devil; Christians do not live their lives torn between serving God or the devil. I do however know of Christians who live their lives torn between their wealth and God. Most of their decisions are based on their wealth. Where they live, what they do, and how much time they have to serve God all depend on their wealth. They spend far more time pursuing wealth than they do pursuing God and when they do pursue God it is in the hopes that they will acquire more wealth. If you are a parent (and if not pretend for a moment that you are), imagine having children whose entire relationship with you revolved around money. Imagine if when they called you or spent time with you it is always related to money. Imagine them telling you that they loved you but did not have time to spend with you because they were too busy enjoying the money you gave them. And finally, imagine if their biggest source of anger and frustration was when you did not give them money and so they turned and walked away from you.
It’s not a one or the other proposition; however, truthfully speaking, you will never surrender all of your heart to God so long as money gets in the way. Whether you are rich or consider yourself to be poor, you will have to decide whom you will serve, God or riches? You will also have to decide who you are going to trust, God or money? Remember that the chief competitor for your heart is wealth.
Questions
- What do you consider to be the ultimate goal of Christianity and why?
- Can you be good or holy on your own? Why or why not?
- What do you believe about prosperity?
- Have you ever made a decision based on your wealth or lack thereof instead of seeking God’s plan for your life?
- How can you serve and trust God with what you have?
Prayer
Heavenly Father, you are the source of everything that is good and holy. Today I surrender myself to you; I want to love you with all my heart, mind and soul. Today I draw close to you, I pray that my concern for those things that I need, want, or desire would not get in the way of my relationship with you. Today I seek first your kingdom and trust that all that I need will be added unto me according to your riches and your glory in Christ Jesus. Amen
