Since that is what money is, then we can also say that it is a tool that allows us to accumulate items, and power over those with less of it, and that empowers mobility in a societal structure.
Is money evil? Of course not. It is as evil as a wrench or a toothbrush.
Loving Money
Now that we know that money is not evil, we have to look at what it means to love money.
How do you love your family?
• You spend time with him/her/them
• Take the pain for them so they are protected
• Your thoughts are captivated by them when they are not in your presence
• You are tender, kind, slow to anger, quick to forgive
• If you are a man, you sacrifice and live for your wife as Yeshua did for His bride
• Your dreams of the future revolve around them
• Late nights and early mornings are spent building and protecting your relationship with your family
• You purposely invest time and effort in your children so they grow to where you want them to be
• Your happiness is determined by the health of those relationships
We’ll come back to our relationship with family, but first let’s look at our relationship with money. I’m going to warn you—the following will be painful for most, but it is a pain that will shed truth on life, and again, it is worth it to be free.
Whenever we talk about money there is a word that comes up that seems synonymous with “money,” and that word is “greed.” We all have a mental picture of someone who loves money, someone who’s greedy. The limo, top hat, big cigar, private jet, and extravagant jewels are usually among the images that flood the mind when the word “greed” is uttered. The man from the Monopoly board game or Daddy Warbucks from the musical Annie are personalities that personify “greed.”
Is this the correct image, though?
Now that we know what love for family looks like, let’s replace “family” with the word “money” and let’s see what we get.
How do you love money?
• Spend time with it (making it, managing it)
• Taking the pain so it doesn’t have to. Ever get up early to make money? Ever work through illness to make money?
• Do you ever get angry at money? No? Most of us get angry at and are slow to forgive those who don’t give us as much money as we want or get in the way of us making more of it.
• Have you ever treated money as the Messiah treated His church? I know a lot of people who sweat, bleed, and cry over money only to have it reject them.
• Do your dreams of the future only come true if more money is in the picture?
• Do you ever get up early for money? Stay up late to make or worry about money issues?
• Do you invest time and energy growing your money? Compare the amount spent “raising” your money versus the amount of time raising your own children. How much time do you spend making money? How much time is left over for your spouse and kids?
I told you that it would be painful!
Actions speak louder than words, so let’s take a look at common actions and you can discern for yourself where your love is.
Show Me the Money
When I go into a church or speak to a group of believers, they love to tell me that money is not the most important thing. I couldn’t agree more, so I recently asked a men’s group, what is the first question you have asked, or plan on asking, your daughter’s fiancé when he asks for her hand in marriage? Do you know what the most common answer is across the Western world of believers? It is not “How long have you been walking with the Lord?” It is not “Do you have a plan on leading my daughter and grandchildren in their spiritual walk?” Do you know what the number-one question Christian/Jewish/Muslim fathers ask? Keep in mind that these are fathers who are believers, fathers who will tell you in a heartbeat that money is not the most important thing. They ask, “How do you plan on providing for my daughter?” Not even, “How do you know you love my daughter enough to be her husband?” Nope, the first question around the world is focused on money.
The number-one question is focusing on an issue that we tell ourselves is not the most important thing? Obviously, there is a problem.
Do you know what the second question often is? “How big of a wedding are you thinking of having?”
Sadly, when asking nonbelievers what their first question would be, I get, “When do you plan on having the wedding?” Again, not what I would think would be the most important, but a much better question than that of most believers! Not that the question of provision is not important—it is, which is why I wrote this book—but to a believer, questions like, “How long have you been a believer?” “Do you have a good prayer life?” “How long have you been going to church?” “What church do you go to?” all would be a better place to start when talking to the man who plans on marrying your daughter.
Believers, for a bunch of people who claim to not love money, sure are greed focused. Therein lies the problem: We don’t really know what greed is.
Pretend for a minute that you are not reading this book and answer the following question honestly. Or, better yet, think of the people you know; how would they answer the following question?
“If you were to get a 10 percent raise at work, what would you do with the money?”
The most common answers I get are:
• I would get a bigger TV.
• I would take a vacation.
• I would get new rims for my truck.
• I would get an iPad.
• I would get new carpet.
We don’t really know what greed is.
Nine out of ten times the answers revolve around what the person can buy for themselves. Part of what it means to love money is focusing on accumulating the stuff money allows you to gather.
This is where it gets interesting. When I ask people (and you can do the same) what would they do if I gave them a substantial amount of money, say $10 million or more? They say:
• I would quit working so hard (stop chasing money).
• I would get a private nurse for my aging parents.
• I would give to the children’s hospital.
• I would build a homeless shelter.
• I would send a million Bibles into Third World nations.
Well, this is indeed interesting. When most people think about getting a substantial amount of money— what most would consider “too much” or “greedy” for them to keep for themselves—they think of ways to act with it that are not greedy at all. But when they think about getting just a little bit more than what they have— an amount nobody would consider “greedy”—they actually become greedy and selfish, thinking of ways to spend it on themselves. If this is you, don’t feel too bad, you are in the same boat as most people around you. I used to be the same way. When you don’t have enough for you, you are what you tend to think about. When you no longer have to worry about you, you have the ability to expand your vision. It just goes to show, though, how much work we have cut out for us; we have been living the wrong way (but calling it right) for generations now.
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