Breaking the Power of Money

In our men's class yesterday, Ray Pettit told his story of visiting an orphanage in India over the holidays. He and his wife lead a ministry called "Sanctuary Home," where they support orphans in a Christian mission in a "village" of 700,000 in eastern India. The video he showed was mesmerizing. Little girls singing praise songs. Cramped, thatched-roof huts that served as places of worship for the churches. A "motorcycle-cam" view of driving through the streets, with people precariously crisscrossing the streets on on bikes and motorized rickshaws.

One of the most touching stories he told was of the widows. Because of the high mortality rate of people, many women with children are left without a husband and have to raise their kids by themselves. But their culture frowns on remarriage... and then comes the double whammy -- it's very difficult for widows to get work. Some of them turn to prostitution while others go from house to house asking if they could clean people's houses for money.

During the summers it gets up to 120 degrees, and yet in order to keep food on the table, workers will go out in the sun to work the fields. Some of them die from heatstroke.

And then there are the children. They learn to work at a very young age, and yet seem to be content even they don't have T.V.'s, laptops and not even an X-Box!

As I heard Ray talk and thought of the poverty and simplicity of these people's lives, I thought of how skewed my view of the world is since I live in such a rich country. I don't want to be controlled by my prosperity and instead use these financial blessings to help others, including those precious kids at Sanctuary Home.

Reading the words of Jesus this morning put a punctuation mark on what I heard from Ray yesterday. In Matt. 19, Jesus told the rich man to sell all he had, give to the poor and follow Him. We all know how the rich man reacted.

And I just wonder how much I cling to money and let it get in the way of my relationship with Jesus and in blessing others. I struggle with this issue, because I want to put money away for retirement and pay off our house so as not to be a burden on others when I can't work. Susan and I hope to give away more money in our later years. And yet how much do we need to be giving away now?

I often think of the chapter on our attitude towards money in the terrific book, Margin by Richard Swenson. He writes:

Again and again the Word instructs us in explicit terms to distrust money. It is not that money is evil, but that the love of money leads to all kinds of evil. With sufficient wisdom and discipline, money can glorify God and be a blessing to many.

And then one of my favorite lines from this book:

How is it possible to break the substantial power money holds over us? Very simple-- give it away. When we give money away, we not only neutralize its power over us, but we also bring it under the domain of the Kingdom of Light... God is honored, and His lordship is confirmed.

Lord Jesus, please give us Your wisdom and discipline in how to handle the money You have entrusted to us and help us freely give it away for Your glory and praise, trusting You with all of our hearts to provide everything we need. Amen.

Jim