Who Backs Your Bank?

This is a series of devotions and meditations on embracing faith and rejecting fear. Money is discussed as an arbitrary tool that can easily become a source of love and obsession. The importance of putting trust in God over money is emphasized. The true value of money for believers is seen in blessing others. Contentment is highlighted as the key to finding happiness and satisfaction, regardless of the amount of money or possessions one has. Ultimately, the most important thing is having a relationship with Jesus, as nothing else has true value. Welcome to Fear No Fear. Grace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. May the Holy Spirit embrace you today. This is a series of devotions and meditations on scripture. We reject fear in any and all forms. Fear is a spiritual force, the currency of darkness and ignorance. It's what we inherited when Adam gave up his faith and Satan uses it to keep people down. His only weapon is words. If he can get you believing or looking at words of fear, he's got you. Instead, we champion faith as an allegiance to God, as a belief and trust and loyalty to the Lord God Almighty. We accept the evidence of his word as unvarnished truth, as is, just as it's written. We get close to his perfect love through the word, and perfect love casts out fear. 1 John 4.18 All scripture is taken from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Visit eBible.org Hebrews 13.5-6 Be free from the love of money, content with such things as you have. For he has said, I will in no way leave you, neither will I in any way forsake you. So that with good courage we say, The Lord is my helper, I will not fear. What can man do to me? Money is a two-sided coin. Well, it probably has more sides than that, but I want to talk about two of the sides. The first is itself, money. It is a thing in and of itself. It's nice to have, but rarely is it nice because money is nice as a thing. Money is nice because of what you can do with it. Money does just about anything. It gets food, entertainment, clothes, homes, vehicles, and sometimes it feels like it gives worth. I mean, who hasn't felt like a nothing because your wallet couldn't handle something others around you were getting? It is a great feeling to be able to be in the store and know you can get anything you want. It's a great feeling to know you can go out if you want to, see a movie, get a meal, do an activity, hang out with friends, or even stay home and order in things. It's great. Everyone who can do it enjoys the feeling, but not everyone knows that feeling. Some of us spend all the time thinking, I wish I could do that. The thing that can be hard to wrap our minds around is that money and everything to do with the monetary system is entirely arbitrary. It's completely and totally made up. We made it. God didn't institute money. Back before the fall, God talks about what we have and what he made and our position. He tells us what he's designated as food, but nothing about money. Go read the first three chapters of Genesis. Creation. Humanity makes its appearance. Humanity chooses not God. Money isn't mentioned once. It wasn't needed before the fall. And after, it was man who decided to slap arbitrary value on things. And we've advanced so far, we don't even base our wealth on real things anymore. Currency is no longer backed by anything real. And yes, a return to that kind of system has many pros and cons. I'm not pushing one or the other. But even looking back at those systems where our money was based on real things, you have to remember that the solid real things providing the dollar with value were in themselves arbitrary. Why was gold valuable? Because we say so. Jewels? Because we say so. Since money is an arbitrary system, an arbitrary item with infinite ways to be created, supplied, and used, the ways in which it can get into us are also infinite. Money can be a powerful crutch. If you have it, you want to keep it. If you don't have it, you want all the things it can get you. No matter which group you stand in, it is so easy to put our thoughts, desires, and faith in money. A lot of problems in life are solved with money. Money can open doors, fill cupboards, and provide security. We put trust in it. But money is like the universe, inanimate and uncaring. People talk about positive thinking manifestations that are based on nothing, just putting it out there so that the universe can bring it to you based on the power of your own thoughts and desires. But you might as well speak to your wallet and ask it to make money. And it wouldn't surprise me if people do just that. The bottom line is that money is a tool, and tools aren't loved. We might say we love a tool, but it just cheapens what real love is. Now, we like things a lot, but you can't really love a thing. You can like anything intensely. You can have passion about anything, but we can only love something with a soul. Which brings us to the second side, the love of money. The love of money isn't a romantic relationship. It's a perversion. It's placing trust and faith in this inanimate thing to solve your problems, provide happiness, and make everything okay now and in the future. Ebenezer Scrooge, that famous fictional character, was a lover of money. You get shackled to it. You have to have it. It must be around, or you have no peace, no happiness, no security, and no life. Everything becomes about acquiring it or valuing whatever faces you by its cost. Your thoughts dwell on it in fear or satisfaction more than on anything else. You get so you don't even notice other things. You just see everything by value. You might even get generous to showcase how you can afford to be. You might be a lover who buys nothing but the best. You might be a lover who never buys unless it's a deal. Either way, loving money, value, putting value on yourself and on things in life, is all wrapped up in bills and coins. It can destroy real relationships, physical ones, emotional ones, and spiritual ones. Now, that doesn't mean you need to shun money. It's an arbitrary value, remember? It isn't a sin. Trusting it over God is a sin. It doesn't mean you can't have loads of it. It means don't put your faith in it. Don't plan your life around it. Put the Lord first, and all else follows. Do you want to have tons of money, or at least the option to have tons of money, just bucket loads? Are you willing to give it all up at the drop of a hat any and every day? That's it. That's the secret. It should never be a thing that you must keep, because you can always get more. We're making money out of thin air these days. We can always get more. The true value of money for a believer is blessing others. That is the responsibility side of the Abrahamic covenant. He was given a covenant where he was blessed. He was blessed in all things. He was blessed so that everything he put his hand to was blessed. But the whole deal was he was then responsible to bless those around him. Money is the least of the treasures of the kingdom. It doesn't have importance. It's just an unnecessary thing to talk about. There's a lot of it around, and we can always get it or, as a society, make more of it. So why worry about it or cling to it? Why say things like, oh, I can't afford that? Yes, you can, because you can get the money for it. The question is, why be wanted? We live in a monetary society, so money is required for us to function. But it should hold the same value to us as clothes do. You need clothes to walk around in and function without being in trouble for being naked. Same with money. We need it to get around and function without getting in trouble. But if you'd be willing to give it all away, if it doesn't have value to you in that sense, and if you're willing to start over without batting an eye, then that money has no hold on you. That doesn't mean you have to give it up. You just have to be willing to. So if it doesn't have a hold on you, then it's fine for you to have. Don't ever keep anything that has a hold on you. It isn't worth it. Sooner or later, they will always interfere with our walk with the Lord. If we have Jesus, why do we need anything else? If we have Jesus, why do we need entertainment? There's nothing wrong with entertainment. But there would be if you let it cut into your walk with Jesus. Same as money. And the key to both, to all things, is to be content. Sometimes that means that you get a thing and appease your desire because now you have it. You don't need to worry that you're lusting after that TV because now you have it. But that's one side of contentment, but there's another side to contentment as well. Contentment as a transitive verb can mean to limit oneself in requirements, desires, or actions. So we can choose to be okay having less. We can choose to be okay with having abundance. And we'll feel exactly the same about both because we've made a choice. It won't matter which one we have. Why? Because we have Jesus. We choose to make Jesus be our value and treasure and the desire of our heart. Which means that we'll be happy with the things we have no matter what they are. Lots, little, or almost nothing. Things that do the job just fine instead of the fanciest gadget around. Contentment is seeing that big house you like and saying, Wow, that sure would be nice. But when you get home to your own house, you like your own house just the same. You clean it, you take care of it, and you'll like it. And if you never get that bigger house, that's okay. But if you get it, well, that's okay too. The only thing worth having and hanging on to, like it is the most important thing in the world, and you'd be lost beyond finding if it was gone, is your relationship with Jesus. Nothing else matters. Nothing else has value. A million dollars or $1.75, it's all the same. That isn't denying the niceness of having things, but it is denying the power of those things to affect you. Jesus wants to bless you. He wants you prepared for what you will face. He'll tell you what you need to do. He'll talk to you about anything that is bothering you and give you advice on it. And you can be free from the love of money or of things. How? By the realization that if He is with you, what does anything else matter? You need? He'll provide. You like? He knows that you like that, and He could very well give it to you. He likes giving good things. But not if it will trap you, James 4.3. Not if it will be a snare to you. Jesus wants you free and remaining free. Free of sin and free of bondage. No matter where He finds it. No matter what aspect of your life He finds that. He wants you free of sin and free of bondage. Seek Jesus, and Jesus will seek you. Love Jesus because Jesus loves you. We can be satisfied in God, Psalm 91. And we won't feel any loss. Not a jot or a jingle. Jesus loves you. The Father loves you. Holy Spirit loves you. And He celebrates your freedom. Our daily affirmation of God's love is John 15, 1-13. The Father loved us before He told anyone about us. As soon as He told Jesus, Jesus loved us too. And what is the proof? He died for us. We give to those we love. We care for them. We fight for them. Any parent will tell you that they would die for their child. There's nothing greater than giving your life for another. Soldiers do it because they love their country. Parents do it because they love their children. Jesus did it because He loves us. God decided on it so that we could be saved from sin. Before sin was even a thing. Before we ever stepped wrong or right. Because He loved us. The Lord loves us more than anything else. Accept it. Be loved. You're worth loving. As we close, remember that you have earth. You are precious and valuable. Declare this. Today, God loves that I, now you, fill in the blank. Was it a meal you made? A smile you gave? Did you get out of bed? Read? Put on socks? There's no wrong answers here. There is no end to God's love. And no end to the things about you that He loves each and every day. Pick one. And remember, the Lord loves you. Just because you're you. 1 John 4, 9-10 tells us, His perfect love turned away God's wrath because of sin. And it casts out our fear too. See verses 18 and 19. We love because He first loved us. He just loves us. Can't get enough of us. And that is wonderful. See you next time.