READ:
1 Timothy 6
We've heard it said, “money makes the world go round." This is just one of the many sayings about money we use today, and I wonder, do we believe it? When we look around our society and the world we live in, is there a love of money? The answer is an obvious ‘yes’. And so it was in Paul's day too. He writes this to Timothy: "Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs." (1 Timothy 6:9-10)
The
topic of money is a vital thing to consider as we seek to follow Christ. It
seems as if people throughout the ages have a natural ability to love money and
the desire to get as much of it as they can (or the “things” that money can
buy). God has warned his people through prophets, kings, and teachers to be
careful about loving riches. Jesus specifically warned people that you cannot
serve both God and money. Do we meditate on this? Do we weigh the words of
Jesus and Paul here in 1 Timothy carefully? Money CAN cause us to wander from
the faith and pierce ourselves. These are serious things! We can be especially
blind to this because we live in such a materialistic culture, and we may seem
like we’re doing better than others. But God’s Word is the standard by which
we’ll be judged, not the habits of our culture or friends even.
JOURNALING AND PRAYER
Today we will look at specific passages in 1 Timothy 6 and pray about what it means in our lives to stand up for and live truth.
1.
“Let all who under a yoke
as bondservants regard their own masters as worthy of all honor, so that the
name of God and the teaching may not be reviled.” We can stand for truth in our
jobs, school or anywhere there is someone having authority over us. This may
look differently in your life than someone else’s. It really isn’t a formula!
Ask the Holy Spirit to speak to you as to how to stand for truth in this area.
Maybe the Lord wants to encourage you to continue to do what you’re doing and
speak words of affirmation to you. A huge part of standing up for truth, of
course, is living the truth of submission to your boss, of being an excellent
employee. This is the most powerful truth-bearing, is being a man or women that
displays the fruits of the Spirit.
2.
“But godliness with
contentment is great gain.” The word ‘but’ is a conjunction – a joining of two
ideas. Paul was just speaking about following sound teaching and joins it with
the idea of godliness with contentment. Sound teaching MUST be combined with
being a person who entrusts themselves to God – these includes trusting Him no
matter our circumstances. Poor circumstances never justify complaining. Ask God
to show you where you have contentment and where complaining is starting to
take control. Make any necessary commitments to change.
3.
“They are to do good, to be
rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up
treasures for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may
take hold of that which is truly life.” Storing up treasures! It’s easy to do
big things for God, but those daily small things that cost us an amount of
time, energy or money, those can be the hard things! Ask God if there is
anything that He is asking of you today that would not necessarily be big, but would
qualify as storing up treasures in heaven.
