Pastor Barry's  "Chapter & Verse"  Day 5

January 5;   Luke 16:13;   60/260(VI);   ‘Two Masters’

Luke 16:13 "No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon." 

The Lord Jesus was teaching His disciples.  He tells them that they cannot serve two masters.  Over and over in the scriptures, we are told that our God is a jealous God.  That truth almost sounds wrong.  If we serve the Lord only, His blessings and provisions will always be there.  That is not the case if we vacillate between the Lord and anything else.  No one cares about us like the Lord does, no one has done more for us than Him.  Because of that reason and simply because serving anyone other than the Lord will cause the Lord’s blessings to be greatly diminished, He wants us to look to Him only. In this verse, the two masters Jesus was talking about were God and money.  Often, religious teachings tell us that the Lord does not want you to have money, that money is carnal.  Money is neutral, it can be used for building the kingdom of God or for selfish purposes.  The challenge money presents is our attitude towards it.  A perfect example of this is often greed hinders us from tithing and without the tithe, your finances are never blessed as they could be if you do tithe.  Here is an interesting fact about God and money and what master we serve.  If money (mammon) is what you serve, God cannot be part of it and cannot bless it.  If God is who you serve, we have His presence and blessings in our lives.  His blessings include money.  As long as money does not mean more to you than the Lord, He will bless you abundantly with finances.