I feel like I have a fairly uncommon approach to the idea of wealth. Call me crazy, but I don't believe that the God of the Bible wants to give me money for the brand new Toyota Tacoma I've been eyeing through the targeted social media advertisements showing up on my feed. Even if I pleaded and prayed, justifying my capitalistic americanized prayer by convincing myself that it was within the "desires of my heart", I have to ask myself at a certain point, what am I really praying for? We read in Matthew 6:24 the words of Jesus as he says: "No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon." The word "mammon" is mamōnas, and means riches or treasure. Wealth. We cannot serve both God and wealth. We read initially and excitedly say to ourselves, "Of course I would serve God and not wealth!" Do we hate wealth though? Often separated by categorized sub-chapter headings added well after the accounts were written, these verses when read in context are interesting. Read verse 19-21, 22-23, then 25 after. When we read it all together it flows quite well. We learn that where our treasure is, there our heart will be also. We should not lay up treasure for ourselves on earth, but in heaven. We learn that the lamp of the body is the eye. If our eyes are good, our body will be full of light, but if our eye is bad, our body will be full of darkness, and how great will that darkness be. We cannot serve two masters, we must hate one and love the other, or be loyal to one and despise the other. We can therefore find solace in the realization that God takes care of our needs, and we have no need to be worried. "Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?" He says in verse 25. Our heavenly Father knows that we need these things. We are instructed to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to us. I encourage you, reader, to search these scriptures for yourself. Ask yourself what kind of weights you are placing on the wealth found in this life, and what your life would really look like if those things were gone, or never attained. I myself find much freedom in the simple idea that at the very least, God promises to clothe me. To feed me. It is this peaceful solace where I find rest from the copious amount of stress that consistently find ways to slither into my life and siphon the possibility to store up those eternal treasures. I find that within such stress and anxiety, I am infinitely incapable of following God in His direction, and am equally deficient in loving the people around me properly, as to shine with light that fills the body. Indeed how great is the darkness that fills me those days. What do you think of these verses? Do you have any other interpretations? Ask some questions and make some comments from your thoughts, and I'll see you in the next post.

In Luke 13:23-27, when Jesus is asked the question, "Lord, will those who are saved be few", His response is to strive to enter the narrow door, and to those who beg the door to be opened to "the house", those who will say: "‘We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.’" The response of the Lord will be: "‘I tell you, I do not know where you come from. Depart from me, all you workers of evil!’" There is a paralleled instance of this verse also in Matthew 7:21-23 that reads: "'Not everyone who says to me, "Lord, Lord," will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, "Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?" And then will I declare to them, "I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness."’" That verse in Luke caught me off guard though, something I had not seen before. He says the phrase, "where you come from." The word there is pothen, which means, "of place: from where, from what condition." The conclusion I drew from my study was that God is interested in all of us. Our entire person, which in our current state, includes where we have come from, and of what conditions we were in, and what condition we are in now. Insert every conceivable condition, and you will find the yearning of God to be in close relational proximity to us in it. In fact, when we read this verse, this is a condition set by God in which we can enter eternity with Him. By eternity with Him of course I mean the period of time set forth from the moment we choose to have God in our minds, including the present time here on earth, the part of eternity with God, the part of heaven, that is on earth. It is this eternity, of which Jesus describes when He says, "the kingdom of heaven is here", that has a specific prerequisite, for God to be invited into our past and present personhood. The brutal places in our minds we only dare to describe to our closest friends, certified therapists, or anyone present at our lowest when we are ready to throw it all away, sometimes even complete strangers when we are in such places. It can be stated, that God, before He would allow such an intimate proximity with us, would only enter such proximity when we allow Him to know us, not in part, as many of us would think such a perfect God would prefer, but in whole, our entire soul and where it has been. It is the personal nature of God that would not allow a closeness with Him without our desire first to be close to Him, and our submission and allowance for God to be let inside our own little worlds we call our minds and memories. This is the essential part of what many people would consider to be repentance, which is only distinguishable by God himself as he searches whether or not we truly invited Him into our soulscape. It is the very thing He will use when determining whether or not we really chose Him in this life. "I do not know where you come from" Have we really invited Him into every room in our house? If not, what is stopping us from doing so? If it is not our pride, it is our misunderstanding of who God is. Truly, it is our God's ultimate goal for humanity to be reconciled to Himself, a reconciliation that does not give regard to the size or weight of things we have done worthy of separating us from Him. For in fact the very thing we think would separate us upon revealing, is the very thing that would usher us into His presence upon submission. It is His presence that is the ultimate mission and goal. That is the kingdom of heaven of which Jesus teaches. A friendship, an ongoing conversation, an adoption to sonship. It is everything that could possible pose to matter in this life, and it has everything to do with how much we invite Him in. Comment your thoughts or ask some questions, and I'll see you in the next post.