Christ is right. We can not love God and money. They both take our affections in different directions. But what is it about money that is so seductive. I think it is our desire for power and independence that gives it the power to grab us. I know I continually fight it. I know, I know, 'we all have to have money to survive.' I tell myself this all the time. (many times to defend my own greed) We love defending the necessity of something to promote our indulgence of it. We do this thinking somehow we can fool ourselves, and many times we succeed. The truth is though, at least for me, I love money and the thought of being financially secure more than God a lot. I am sure this is true more often than I realize, for it always takes me a while to see where I've let myself get to. Actually I'm typing this because I am convicted about my condition now. The Lord is always faithful to deliver me. I just wish I wouldn't wonder back away from Him. This is true with all my sins. Like the line in the old hymn "prone to wonder, Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love." Thank God His grip is stronger than mine. I'll leave a couple lines from a man that has helped me so much. Here is a prayer he put at the end of a chapter titled 'The blessedness of possessing nothing' in his book "The pursuit of God"
Father, I want to know Thee, but my cowardly heart fears to give up its toys. I cannot part with them without inward bleeding, and I do not try to hide from Thee the terror of the
parting. I come trembling, but I do come. Please root from my heart all those things
which I have cherished so long and which have become a very part of my living self, so that
Thou mayest enter and dwell there without a rival. Then shalt Thou make the place of Thy
feet glorious. Then shall my heart have no need of the sun to shine in it, for Thyself wilt
be the light of it, and there shall be no night there. In Jesus' name, Amen.
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