There are two ways to value money. The first is to invest it in the Kingdom of God through the souls of man. The second is to value it for this world only through pleasures and possessions for ourselves.

The Lord Jesus, in His public ministry, speaks more on the subject of stewardship than heaven and hell combined. The reason is because our attitude toward money, or materialism, determines where and how we will spend eternity. Attitude is the key, it is not the one who possesses the money, but the one who money possesses.

Money can cause us to confuse this world with where we are rather than where we are going. It is so easy to become settlers in this life and lose the reality of eternity. In the Bible, we are referred to as pilgrims, sojourners or strangers as we pass through this world. Materialism, or greed, cannot be satisfied with more because the more we get the more we want. The more we have the more there is to maintain turning it from a luxury to a need. A paraphrase of Ecclesiastes 5:12 says the more money we have the more people we need to manage it, which produces more worry and results in less sleep.

Luke chapter 16 tells of the rich man in hell who is reminded that for all his life he enjoys the wealth of this world, however death separates him from all of it. He is now in eternity without his so-called riches and without God. Wealth has an expiration date, it is only good for this world. Riches in heaven, however, are eternal. Prosperity can blind people and give a false sense of security to our real need of the Lord.

In order to understand life, we must place the correct worth on things, because they are just that — things. That is why all the treasure of the Pharaohs is in their tombs, because it cannot pass over into eternity. It is said that true wealth is what money cannot buy and death cannot take away.

The addiction to things is what causes its victims to sell their soul for another fix. How many have sacrificed their health to get their wealth, only to have to spend their wealth to get their health back.

Please be careful of being caught in the vicious cycle of getting and fail to make provisions for leaving this world. Our soul is worth more than all of this world’s wealth combined. As Jesus says – it is extremely hard, almost impossible, for a wealthy person to enter the Kingdom of God. It is not because of the wealth itself, but the power it has over them.

If the Lord gives us the gift of making money, ask Him for wisdom on how to use it. The Lord does not measure our worth by material possessions, but instead, by our relationship to Him.

STEVE CONWELL, pastor of Maranatha Baptist Church, is heard mornings on WFLO and WVHL in “A Thought For Today.” His email address is SteveConwell@outlook.com.