MoneyWalk 449: You shall not covet

This program will help you undo financial bondage.

I used to wonder what was meant by the scripture that says, “The love of money is the root of all evil.” To my human mind it seemed somewhat strange and in conflict with my wisdom. I certainly was able to take from the scripture the fact that I was not to love money because this attitude could be the start to a downward spiral spiritually and maybe financially. I also was able to understand that I was to make the pursuit of God’s will for my live my utmost desire and goal and forsake any mindset that would cause me to make earning income and creating wealth more important than devotion to my Lord and service to His people. However, I wasn’t able to grasp much more because I thought what does loving money have to do with committing fornication or adultery or cursing your neighbor or most anything other than thievery and related financial crimes.

To be sure, the “root of all evil” language stumped me for a long time until I heard a message about how satan utilized covetousness as the temptation to encourage Adam and Eve to eat the forbidden fruit. Coveting can be defined as “wanting somebody else’s stuff.” Sure that sly serpent used clever words to trick them into eating the forbidden fruit; however the temptation they allowed to rule them was covetousness because they desired to be as God. They were led to believe that God was holding knowledge and power from them that they could indeed have and that it was all available via the produce of the “Tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”

Satan convinced them that they too could be omnipotent, omniscient, and possibly omnipresent and all powerful because these qualities were not inherently in God. They were in fact produced by that tree. Yes, they were tricked in more ways than one but the root of it all was covetousness. All the evil we see came from satan and then Adam coveting that which could only be God’s. They wanted something that only God Almighty can possess. Only He is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and omni-powerful. While they could have close fellowship with Him, represent His light in the earth, and righteously manage His possessions to be very fruitful, they could never be these things. Satan tricked them with the same temptation (covetousness) that caused Him to be thrown out of heaven to the earth like a bolt of lightning; he said that he would ascend to the throne of God almighty.”

The love of money is a trunk line from this same root of covetousness that we are commanded to avoid. When we love money we desire to obtain it, hold on to it, and/or spend it on our pleasures more than we desire to please God. This shows up most often in people’s failure to recognize God as their Lord and spend time fellowshipping with Him and his church. Within church circles it shows up most often as people’s failure to tithe and give offerings to help the church spread the gospel message throughout the earth. When you’re too busy to honor and glorify God in the manner He instructed you’re making your utmost priority the pursuit of all those things that represent money and acting as though you sit upon the throne with the ability to provide for yourself and dictate how your life should be lived. Thus, you love money more than you love God and also more than you love your fellow man.

You’re headed for eternal destruction and many times financial hardship on earth when you covet anything other than a relationship with the Lord and daily fellowship with Him. Work, career aspirations, building business, wealth building, caring for family, nor any other situation or endeavor in your life is an excuse that God will accept as a reason for not honoring Him and coveting His treasures to take care of that which you think is important. He doesn’t mind you having access to His manifold treasures, but He desires that these treasures flow into your life as a benefit to you and others from relationship and deep fellowship with Him. His Word is clear, “He withholds no good thing from those who walk upright before Him.” Let His will be your will to decide how to walk out love, work, career, business, wealth building, and ministry and you will avoid being a branch that protrudes from the trunk line of covetousness and avoid the negative earthly and eternal consequences that come to those who condone and perpetuate the root of all evil.

Please pray for this ministry and email any questions. May God bless you richly as you follow His plan!!!
Genesis 3, Exodus 20:17, Psalm 24:1-2, Matthew 6:19-21, 1Timothy 6:10, Revelations 4:11
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