“Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matthew 6:21). Jesus taught a lot about values, and people were often convicted by their own unwillingness to choose God and others over the idols they worshipped. Jesus didn’t tell everyone to sell everything and follow Him; only those who He perceived loved wealth above all else. One of the most misquoted Bible verses is that money is the root of all evil. The actual quote is “The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.” (I Timothy 6:10). Jesus, Paul, and James all wrote about the difficulty that rich people will have getting into heaven. Not because rich people are bad, but because wealth – the desire, love, and fixation on it – can cause us to change our values from others and God to self only.
Among the many traits that matter to me, I value honesty, integrity, truth, and generosity. I value honor, commitment, service, and faithfulness. This doesn’t mean that I never waiver from those values; like every person ever, I have messed up, fallen short, and missed the mark. Even with those failures, my values matter to me. For example, our church helps people every day with food and financial assistance, but if someone lies to us, we thank them and ask them to leave. We cannot have a relationship if there is dishonesty in the mix. I recently had to ask a man who we help regularly to stop coming because he came across as belligerent and threatening to the staff, which he denied. I witnessed it. Sometimes, our values mean saying no. What are your values?
I value my relationship with God. I value my family. I value my faith community. I value my friendships. I value my country. This is not in any specific order, which is what makes living up to one’s values such a challenge. Jesus said that we cannot serve two masters (wealth and God – Luke 16:13); easily said, but not easily done. Sometimes, we have to choose between the things that matter most, and those decisions are frustrating. Still, we persist in doing our best with the choices we are given. Our values flow from our vision of who we want to be, and our mission in life. May your choices be obvious; but if they aren’t, do the best you can. Thus is our struggle as flawed people who love a perfect God. Luckily for us, God is full of grace, and God values each one of us. That’s a good thing, I think.
Prayer – Holy God, thank You for valuing us and being so generous. May our lives mirror, as much as we possibly can, that love. Amen.
Today’s art is “Generosity” (2021), artist unknown.