I have been writing about how the Bible can be summarized in Matthew 22:36-40 as love God; love people. Two weeks ago I wrote that love is not about rules but about a relationship (Love Rules?).

Last week I wrote that if we have a relationship and know God intimately then we will want to follow Him and we will want to follow His rules (Love Hurts?).

In addition to having a relationship and obeying God how else are we to love Him?

I love the current AT&T commercials. The guy sitting around a small table with the kids asking questions like ‘What’s better faster or slower?’ ‘Is bigger or smaller better?’ and ‘Is more or less better?’ The point of the ads is that the choice is obvious – faster, bigger and more are better.

But is it obvious – is more is better? Specifically is having more money and stuff better? Are we happier, more content and more at peace if we have more? This is definitely the message we are bombarded with every day through society and the media. It is after all the American Dream. But is the American Dream God’s dream for our lives?

I have heard several great quotes recently about money:

1. We make a living by what we make; we make a life by what we give.
2. We trust Him as our Lord and Savior for eternity but we don’t trust Him with our money; why else we would be stingy with our giving. We don’t give more because we don’t trust God will provide.
3. We make sure we invest in our earthly bank accounts but what about our forever bank account? We are going to spend a lot more time in forever than here on earth but we worry so much more about our earthly bank accounts than our forever bank account.

Having or even wanting money is not bad or wrong; having nice things isn’t necessarily wrong– it is a matter of our focus and what we are doing with it that counts. Clearly money is important to God (money is mentioned in over 800 verses in the New Testament) but is it what drives us?

Matthew 6:24 “No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.”

Here are some very helpful principles regarding giving:

1. If you are not giving, give.
2. If you are giving, then give generously.
3. If you are giving generously, then give sacrificially.

God doesn’t need our money but God does wants us to give. God doesn’t want us to give because He needs it; He wants us to give because He knows that giving is good for us. He knows that the more we give the happier we will be.

In addition and most importantly we can trust him:

Malachi 3”10 “Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the LORD Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it.”

Luke 6:38 “Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

If we love God we will want to give more and more. In the end is less more?

In His Service,

Ed