Kenneth Ulmer - The Power of Money: How to Avoid a Devils Snare

G OD doesnt want our money, He wants our hearts. Giving your heart to Him starts with an attitude check and a reality check. Nothing compares to the promises we have in God. Hes our sourcethe only source we need. He is our protector. He is our champion. He is our provider.

I am constantly amazed at the love of God. I am completely humbled at the knowledge that He loves me! That is a revelation that becomes the very motivation and inspiration for my life. If you get nothing else out of this book, simply know that He adores you; He loves you; Hes crazy about you.

He doesnt care what youve done. He doesnt care where youve been. God woke you up this morning and touched you with a finger of love, as my grandma used to say. He allowed you to see a day youve never seen before and shall never see again, for one reason and one reason only: because He loves you! He knows all youve said and thought and done during your life and He still loves you. There are people who know me, but dont love me. We all have people in their lives who know them, but dont love them. Then there are others who love me but dont truly know me. No doubt, youve got some of those, too. But God is so much God that He knows me and loves me anyway. I dont care what people said about you, I dont care what youve been involved in, I dont care what they called you, I dont care what youve done, I dont care what youve been, God loves you!

The God who loves you is the source of all of your provisions for life. The God who loves you will provide for you. And because He loves you, He releases into your life expressions of His love called blessings. The very essence of God is that God is love, as it says in First John 4:8. The God who is love, loves so much that He gives. Once you declare and acknowledge that God loves you, you must then declare and acknowledge that He is your source and that you look to nothing and to no one else but Himnot the world; not your boss; not your bank account; not the government; not your parents; not your looks; not your intelligence, your degrees, or your resume. Not anything or anyonebut God.

Jesus says, Dont trip out! Thats my modern interpretation. He said, in Matthew 6:34: Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own (NIV). Dont be anxious, dont consider, dont be upset, dont fret about how youre going to make it tomorrow. Dont trip out on that. Hes a perfect Father, Hes not going to mess with youHe chose to have you. He said, in Matthew 7:9-10, Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? (NIV). God is telling us, Ill take care of you because Im a good Father. He just wants us to exercise extreme caution concerning our attitude toward money, riches, finances, and material possessions, because theres a devils snare in worshiping those things:

Take heed and beware of covetousness, for ones life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses. Then He spoke a parable to them, saying: The ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully. And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, since I have no room to store my crops? So he said, I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there I will store all my crops and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry. But God said to him, Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided? So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God (Luke 12:15-21).

We never know for sure which day will be our last one on earth. Thats why it is so important that we decide as soon as possible whom we will be rich toward, because no one can serve two masters. Either we will hate the one and love the other, or we will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Mammon (see Matt. 6:24). After giving us this warning about the spirit-being Mammon, Jesus immediately followed it up with this comforting and powerful promise:

Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, What shall we eat? or What shall we drink? or What shall we wear? For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you (Matthew 6:25-33).

God is saying that He provides even for the birds of the air and the lilies of the fields. He says that if they trust God, the Creator of the universe, to provide for them, then surely He can be trusted to provide for His children. Its about faith! We hear a lot in churches these days about mountain-moving faith. Speak to the mountain, Mountain, move! There are a lot of people out there speaking to mountains that arent ever going to move because God is not going to move them. Why? Because He wants to give us the strength, the ability, and the experience to climb some mountains. He wants to teach us patience for Him to move some mountains. Or He might want to give us the patience to go around or under or over some mountains.

Mountain-moving faith implies great big faith. But Jesus said, Look at the sparrows. The essence of faith in God as the loving God who provides for us is seen not in the picture of the person who has enough faith to move mountains, but in the picture of the person who has the faith as a sparrow. Sparrows dont sit around on tree branches focusing the intense strength of their faith on a granite slab of mountain in front of them so it will move aside and reveal all of the juicy worms beneath it. No! Sparrows have sparrow faith. Sparrow faith is simply this: the trust and the faith that we put in God as our source and our provider. Thats it. Its not deep. Its not complicated. Its the picture of a bird that simply trusts its Creator to provide for its needs every minute of every day. Jesus is saying that is the kind of faith you and I need. A quiet, assured, knowing faith. A faith that trusts God as our complete source and provider for everything, always.

Trust. That is the essence of what God wants us to learn. Americas money (the conversion of God-created wealth into the worlds medium of exchange) still has printed on it the phrase In God we trust. Do we, really? Or has the currency upon which that powerful credo is printed become the focus of our trust?

Jesus stated the question best:

If you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches? (Luke 16:11)

Notes

F OR more than 25 years, Kenneth C. Ulmer, Ph.D., has been senior pastor of Faithful Central Bible Church in Los Angeles, a congregation with a membership in the five figures. In 2000, the church purchased The Great Western Forum (previous home of the Lakers professional basketball team), which the church operates as a commercial entertainment venue.