Follow The Money

“They will throw their money in the streets, tossing it out like worthless trash. Their silver and gold won’t save them on that day of the LORD’s anger. It will neither satisfy nor feed them, for their greed can only trip them up. [Ezekiel 7.19] 

Follow the money. It's just that simple, isn't it?

Jesus said it best:

Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be. [Matthew 6.21]

Follow the money. Money reveals idols. Idols reveal the desires of the wayward heart. 

It is a fool's errand to pursue money and all that money acquires. Debt does not fix the wayward heart. Insurance does not fix the wayward heart. Medicine does not fix the wayward heart. Technology does not fix the wayward heart.

In the reasoning of man, it is concluded that money is necessary because it provides the necessities of life. How interesting is it that in the context of Jesus' words above in Matthew 6, that Jesus must have known how man would reason, so He spoke directly to the issue of "necessities."

“So don’t worry about these things, saying, ‘What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?’ These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs. Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need. [Matthew 6.31-33]

If Israel of old would come to the conclusion that money was worthless, does the Bible not warn us that we too will be faced with that same decision?

Idolatry gets right in there where we live. It gets itself ingrained in our daily lives - our daily provisions. Idolatry proves our unfaithfulness to God by its very necessity in our lives. On the authority of God's Word, how much we depend on money and the things it buys is a direct correlation to how faithless we are to God.

Follow the money. Follow the money. Follow the money.

Follow the money!

For all the talk about "faith" in our Christian circles, making it seem so illusive and difficult, why do we not simply follow the money? The money shows us not only what "trust" looks like but undeniably where it lies.

It is not sufficient to claim "idolatry was Old Testament." Jesus' timeless address of money should be all we need to understand that money is the great revealer of man's faith (or lack thereof).

Father, help us to follow the money. And, when we do, may we be found genuinely repentant for our modern idolatry that makes Israel's idolatry pale in comparison. So be it.