Last night was youth group and we pulled an all-nighter. We have one student leaving for the Marine Corps in a week and so we had a going away party. Anyway, I was at the office all day yesterday and didn't get to see my family very much at all. This morning then, after 3 hours of sleep, I accompanied my wife and children to the i-Wireless Center to drop off Tropical Sno stuff. It is always fun because we are allowed to just walk in like we own the place and go wherever we want to go. Anyway, today when we got there we found 12,000 people at a conference called "Get Motivated". As we pulled up to the place we were already making the jokes that you are thinking right now. So we walk in and find that they had moved everything that is normal to abnormal places thus making our jobs harder and wasting a little more of our time. While Pam took Micah and looked for the boss to find where he wanted our stuff, I held Gabriel's hand and stood in the doorway and watched. What I saw made my stomach turn. There on the stage way below me was a very handsome, charismatic man. Right in front of me was that same man on a HUGE video screen. As I watched he began saying "imagine what you could do with unlimited money". He then began scrolling through pictures of himself doing the coolest things in the coolest places. He was snowboarding in New Zealand, relaxing on his ranch in Texas with his racehorse grazing in the background, driving a ridiculously cool car, and about every other richest person in the world type thing that you can imagine. The scary part is that all 12,000 people were watching in awe as he explained how much better life is when you make $2,000 every day and all your worries take care of themselves. Then it hit me that these people were sitting there getting motivated by greed! Of all the lies! Demons were dancing on the roof of that building giving high fives and saying, "mission accomplished." Then I woke up to the horrific realization that darn near everything we do is motivated by money. In fact, the very reason I was standing in that place at the time was for something that would hopefully reap some kind of fiscal reward. We believe in this country that money is the driving force behind all that is good and right. Christians would scoff at that notion, but we are just as guilty. What scares me is that we are often even more guilty because we hide that idea by putting Jesus name in front of it. In our minds, church stops, ministry stops, and Christianity dies if people don't give money. Should people tithe? Oh yes, but I believe that Jesus demands a lot more of us. I think that what He was saying about the widow that gave her last two pennies was more than she had done a greater thing. I think her great deed wasn't in the act of giving, but in the act of trusting God enough that she didn't need to care about money. When will we stop caring about money? I've been to churches that have made it their priority to teach people how to budget in a Christian fashion. I watched this seminar for five minutes and they shot a few slides up on budgeting and they looked EXACTLY like the slides I've seen in the church. It is downright freaky.
Don't get me wrong. It is important to know how to deal with money. Where we go wrong is in the belief that the right way to handle money is to reap more money with it. We have this idea that if you don't have a lot of money, you are obviously not handling the money you do have correctly. You should make smart investments, tithe, save, etc... The world teaches the exact same thing. If the church and the world (which is sinful by nature) are teaching the same thing we should make positive sure that everything is okay with us.
I once heard a preacher say, "keep yourself out of debt so that you aren't tied to anything when God calls you." That is a great statement. I believe it whole-heartedly.
I've heard preachers say, "If you handle your money correctly, and put it where God wants you to put it he will be faithful to bless you with even more than you have. Do what is right and God will never let you down." This is a sack of bull honkey tonkey wonkey. God will be faithful to his promises and his blessings will come sure. I would hesitate to tell Job that if you do everything right God won't take anything away from you. Two prominent members of a church both owned car dealerships that sold Chevy cars. They were both EXTREMELY generous to the church. More so than most people. Why then did they both just have their dealerships closed by Chevrolet? God doesn't work in a way that always makes sense to us. Why can't we feel safe teaching that? God is really only good for us when He gives us what we want. No wonder the church is dying at such an alarming rate here in this greed driven country. When will the church stand up and say, "Forget about money, I have a God who can do without it?"
I contemplated moving my family to a place like China or Brazil or Kenya where the Gospel is spreading like wild fire and Christianity is growing faster than it is dying here. And then I realized something; God has put me here in the biggest mission field in the world. A famous missionary from India to America said this, "It is much harder to be a Christian in America than in India." Never mind that they still kill Christians in India. It is much better than the spiritual death we have all suffered here because we confused God with the green paper in our wallets. The question I ask myself and you is this, "How do you truly love Jesus in America and avoid confusing a love for Him with a love for money?" Also, "How do you teach your kids that?"
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