Money is an accurate window on what is truly important to us. It exposes the fact that this side of eternity it is really hard to hold in our hearts as important what God says is truly important. There is a dangerous tendency in each of our hearts to assign increasing importance to things beyond their true importance, and these things begin to command the thoughts, desires, and allegiance of our hearts.

1. We don’t have the right to use our money however we please.

The existence that dominates the universe is not ours, but God’s. It is this perspective that must shape—or for some of us, reshape— the way we think about money. Life is not first about our wants, desires, dreams, purposes, expectations, or plans. Life is about God’s will, God’s purpose, God’s pleasure, and God’s glory. We must not, and cannot, look at money separately from the ultimate reality of life, the existence of God. We were created by God according to his wise design and for his wise purpose. Our lives don’t belong to us to use as we please. Because we were created by God, we belong to God, and because our money belongs to God, we don’t have the right to use and invest it however we please.

2. Money points to what rules our hearts.

Money is an accurate window on what is truly important to us. It exposes the fact that this side of eternity it is really hard to hold in our hearts as important what God says is truly important. There is a dangerous tendency in each of our hearts to assign increasing importance to things beyond their true importance, and these things begin to command the thoughts, desires, and allegiance of our hearts. If you’re humbly willing to look, your desires for and use of money will help you see what is battling for the rulership of your heart.

3. Money can cause us to neglect God.

Money can function as an ingredient in a lifestyle that, at street level, forgets God’s existence and his plan. This lifestyle is more about personal glory than God’s glory, and it reduces one’s expenditure of money to personal desire, self-defined need, and the pursuit of individual comfort and pleasure. Those caught in that lifestyle may not theologically deny the existence of God, but their money supports a lifestyle that ignores it

4. We’re never smarter with our money than God.

Every sin dethrones divine wisdom and enthrones human wisdom. So it is with money. Every misuse of money begins with elevating human wisdom over the wisdom of God. Every bit of money trouble begins with assuming that something God says is bad isn’t so bad after all. Every instance of paralyzing debt begins with denying human foolishness and minimizing the protective value of the wisdom of God. There is nothing more dangerous to our financial well-being than thinking, if for even an instant, that we are smarter than God.

Read More