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
According to this verse, all people have a choice: to serve God, or to serve money. The Bible teaches that the correct path is serving God and placing money beneath Him. But what do these two options mean? Why can we not serve both? And why is it important that we choose?
When someone thinks of “serving money,” the image that comes to mind is of a greedy and obsessed miser like Charles Dickens's Ebenezer Scrooge or George Eliot's Silas Marner. We are not like those men, so we are not serving money. . . right? The truth is that it is much easier to fall into the trap of devoting ourselves to wealth than we may think. According to the context of the above verse, “serving money” is living with the purpose of material possessions – “storing up . . . treasures on earth” (Mat. 6:19). This passage is not saying that owning things is wrong; however, valuing those things more than we value people – or God Himself – is. Examples of this would be if we chose not to spend time reading the Bible for the sake of video games, or if we were rude to someone because they interrupted us while we were reading a favorite book. Serving money is something we can fall into unconsciously – but with unfortunate consequences, including alienation from friends or even from our Lord. But what about serving God? What does that mean, and why is it the better alternative?
All Christians are called to serve God: to obey His commands and divine plan for our lives out of love for Him. But why should we serve Him? God created humankind with the purpose of glorifying Him – not out of selfishness or vanity, but because He deserves praise. Obeying Him is how we accomplish this goal. This can at times be complex and intimidating, making us think that it would be easier not to serve Him, but our own desires (serving money) – until we realize that He planned for the difficulties we would have and that He is helping us obey Him.
The basic decision presented in this passage is to either make material possessions or God's glory the aim of your life. But why can we not choose both? The answer to this is found in the first of the Ten Commandments: “You shall have no other gods before [or besides] me” (Exodus 20:3). When we try to serve both God and money, we place money on the same level as God. By setting something equal to God, we break one of God's commands and disobey Him – which means that we are not serving Him, but money. We must choose between the two – and we must do so wisely, for this decision determines how we will spend not only this life, but all eternity.
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