The Love of Money and Temptation

"Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.

Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us.

But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth.I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it and because no lie comes from the truth. Who is the liar? It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a man is the antichrist—he denies the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also.

See that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you. If it does, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father. And this is what he promised us—even eternal life.

I am writing these things to you about those who are trying to lead you astray. As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit—just as it has taught you, remain in him.

And now, dear children, continue in him, so that when he appears we may be confident and unashamed before him at his coming. If you know that he is righteous, you know that everyone who does what is right has been born of him."

-- 1 John 2:15-29

"Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him."

Sounds familiar, doesn't it? "Money is the root of all evil," sort of thing? Well, to that I say a few things. First of all, the Bible never says that money itself is evil. The verse that people so often misquote is "For the LOVE of money is the root of all evil."

"But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs."
--1 Timothy 6:6-10

This passage from Timothy ties perfectly into the passage from 1 John. I don't believe for a moment that we are not supposed to love people, to place great value upon them. That's not what the author meant when he said we should "not love the world or anything in the world." We are, in fact, instructed to love each other, cherish each other, treat each other in a Christ-like way. Timothy states it pretty plainly though. We were born with nothing, and that's the way we leave the earth. Things don't matter. Wealth ceases to matter. So why do we become so attached to things like wealth and prestige to the point where it becomes the center of our universe, our "god?" It's not money that's the issue, it is "the LOVE of money." When we take our eyes off of God's will for our lives, and allow ourselves to lust over something, we are really digging our own grave. How often have you seen a life destroyed because of greed? I'm not necessarily talking about a riches to rags sort of deal. At least not monetarily. I'm talking about how many times have you seen a father neglect his family because he wants to make more, be promoted more often, get that next big pitch? Where does that leave the family? Poor, that's where. But poor in a very different sense of the word. It's what leads to being "pierced with many griefs."

I admit, I do it in my own life sometimes. How long have I been neglecting my devos because my work "exhausts" me? How often now do I get tired and frustrated because I am losing sight of the prize that awaits me? How often do I fall into that trap of "loving" the things of this world? I know better, I do, but that doesn't mean it's automatically easy to avoid.

It's not that you have to be poor to be righteous, to be a "good Christian." I point out the tons of people in the Bible who were blessed with riches, all of them extremely godly people. But they kept their eyes on the prize, they kept focused on where God wanted to lead their lives. Abraham, Joseph, David, Solomon, Job, the list goes on and on. Wealth isn't a bad thing, but I do think that it's once you begin to be discontent with wherever you are in life that things begin to go astray.

Also, I love how it states that the lustful cravings are "not from the Father." I think that is an important distinction to make. I hear, a lot of the time, "God is tempting me. He's testing me to see if I can handle it." But that simply isn't true.

"When tempted, no one should say, "God is tempting me." For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death."
--James 1:13-15

Also, the other verse I love regarding temptation:

"No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it."
--1 Corinthians 10:13

Item number one: No temptation, or sin, or worldly "love" you will ever face will be exceptional, something no one has encountered before. It is "common to man."

Item number two: God is awesome. He will never let you be tempted beyond what you can handle. So when you think, "This is too much, God is giving me too much to handle," just think of this verse. God has your back, He will never let you take on more than you can handle. And not only that, but he gives you a way out when you are tempted. Also, God cannot tempt you with evil because that is outside His very nature.

I used to give this analogy to my campers when I was a camp counselor:

Your mom makes a batch of cookies, and it's before dinner and the cookies are for a charity event. She tells you not to eat any of the cookies and then exits the kitchen to attend to other duties. You're standing there, smelling the amazing fresh cookie smell, and you think to yourself, "she won't notice if just one is gone. They smell so flippin good! How can I resist? She made them right now just to tempt me! She knew I'd want one! It's her own fault if I have one. It's only one, after all, right?" And so, you take one, even though you just ate an hour ago.

Now stop. Let's think this over. Your mom didn't make the cookies to tempt you. That's probably the furthest thing on her mind. And you didn't have to eat the cookie. There were a million other things you could have walked away to do. You have homework. Your best friend wants to hang out. The yard needs mowed. Sponge-bob is on. Whatever. There are a million ways out for you to escape the situation. But what did you do instead? You ate the cookie. Were there other things you could have done instead? Yes. Is being tempted by the wonderful fresh cookie smell something no one else in the history of man has ever had to go through? No. It's not. It's so normal, so "common to man" it's practically laughable.

Temptation. It isn't easy, but we have confidence in the Lord's support. And He's the one guy I definitely want on my side.

Last but not least (I got super off topic here with 1 John), the last line which talks about righteousness. Pay close attention. Read it through again. His righteousness is our righteousness. And I wish I had about two more hours to go over this, but I think I'm out of time. Until tomorrow. =)