Let Love Lead
… In Our Money – Part III

Scripture Reading: Luke 12:15-21

Key Verse: Luke 12:15
Then He said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.”

As Jesus introduced the “New Covenant” (or the New Testament) to the world, He taught how to view money.

Someone said that finances are Jesus’s most talked about topic, with eleven of His 39 parables about money.

The reason for Jesus’s teaching about money certainly is not because He wanted to “get more of your money” like some people assume about the church. Jesus understood better than any human the blessings and the dangers of money.

Luke in today’s Key Verse reports one of the warnings that Jesus gave us. When Jesus said “Watch out!”, do you think He is being over dramatic or exaggerating?

Jesus is telling us to watch out for “all kinds of greed”. Think about the different kinds of greed. There is the obvious, greed for more money. There is greed for more possessions.

There is greed for popularity, a craving to fit into popular groups. As the Apostle Paul put it:

Do not be proud but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited. (Romans 12:16)

There is greed for beauty, a craving for outer beauty over inner beauty. (Eighteen million surgical procedures for enhancing physical appearance take place in the U.S. alone!)

Jesus is saying to guard your heart from any craving that competes with God and His work in your life.

None of us want to think that we have allowed greed to get into our hearts. However, the reason Jesus teaches on it is because He understands that greed can seep in without a person realizing it.

Greed is a slow growing cancer that can come about when we see people around us having money and the things money can buy. Greed is like other things that “look good” but end in painful consequences.

Greed destroys families when a parent allows themselves to become workaholics and leave their family behind. Or when people spend money going into debt to have “stuff” and suffer the results of bankruptcy.

Jesus summarizes this lesson with the point that life does not consist in the abundance of possessions. Unfortunately, far too many people do not live like they believe Jesus’s point. How many people do you know that live like this?

Tomorrow we look at some safeguards we can put in place.

Father, help me to not give in to any kind of greed. I want to crave You alone! In Jesus’s Name I pray, amen.