“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. Matthew 6:24.
Today your LORD (יהוה) God (אלהים) says:
As you walk in the light, light you will become. As you walk in My love, love you will become. As you read, speak, meditate upon, and do My Word, the more blessed your life will become.
The more time you spend with Me, the more like Me you will become. My mouth is all sweetness and I am altogether delightful. Song of Songs 5:16. Come share your Father’s joy!
In our prior Life Lesson we talked about the “single” eye, that is, being focused on what matters and not distracted to many unimportant things. Not double vision, not folded up in confusion. Serving one master is about being focused and not double minded. Double vision is focused on two masters. And you cannot be all in either one that way. You will be vacillating between the two. But vacillation never produces anything worthwhile. It just takes up your time and others’ time as well. And if you are focused on both light and darkness, those do not combine, one has to overcome the other. Light and darkness have nothing in common.
And today’s Life Lesson is actually a continuation of the prior one and tomorrow’s Life Lesson will continue on along the same theme. So today we focus on the very next teaching in the Sermon on the Mount.
“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. Matthew 6:24.
You cannot straddle the fence, there are only two choices for your master, so you will have to choose one or the other. And you may think you are neutral, taking no position, but the default position is staying with Satan and the realm of darkness for you were born into that kingdom from Adam’s sin and the corrupted seed. By not choosing Me you have already chosen.
You cannot serve two masters. You are going to hate one and love the other, or you will be devoted to one and despise the other. Do you not know that the friendship of the world is enmity toward Me? If you want to be a friend of the world, you make yourself an enemy to Me. James 4:4. The world is hostile to Me, and by the world I mean society that denies My existence and has no need for Me. A godless society that makes its own decisions as to good and evil and goes stout against My Word.
The mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward Me; for it does not subject itself to My law, for it is not even able to do so, and those who are in the flesh cannot please Me. However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Holy Spirit dwells in you. Romans 8:6-9.
You cannot serve Me and Mammon. You must be all in with Me or all out with Me, there is no middle ground for if you are lukewarm, I spit you out of My mouth. What did I tell you about being all in? “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” Luke 10:27.
You cannot believe in things contrary to My Word and be serving Me. Abortion, gender confusion, rebellion against parental authority, mercy killing, may sound right when clothed in deceitful language but they are not from Me and cause death and not life. There is a path that seems right in the eyes of a man but it ends in death.
I tell you that you cannot serve mammon. Many translate that as you cannot serve Me and money. But money in itself means nothing but what you can buy with it. And it can be used to tithe, to bless others, to build projects for the Kingdom and to provide for your needs and that of others. I give you the power to gain wealth to confirm My Covenant.
So what is mammon? It is bowing down to the devil to obtain things in the world. It was one of the temptations he tried to trouble Jesus with in the wilderness before He began His public ministry. If you recall, the devil took Jesus to a very high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory in a moment of time. And the devil said to Him, “I will give You all this domain and its glory; for it has been handed over to me, and I give it to whomever I wish. Therefore, if You fall down and worship me it shall all be Yours.” Then Jesus said to him, “Go, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only.’” Then the devil left Him; and behold, angels came and began to minister to Him. Matthew 4:8-10; Luke 4:5-8.
Mammon is worshipping the devil for personal glory and gain, for worldly prestige and adoration. How do you worship the devil? By obeying and submitting to him. By doing the works of the flesh rather than bearing the fruit of the spirit.
Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, My love is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from Me, but is from the world. The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does My will lives forever. 1 John 2:15-17.
And the works of the flesh are evident, just as the fruit of the Spirit is as well, completely opposite but evident. Addictions, sexual immorality, adultery, theft, murder, jealousy, strife, obscene speech, rude behavior, and the like cannot be hidden long, they will come out. But the same is true of righteousness, peace, joy, and virtue.
Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit My kingdom unless they repent and turn to Me. Galatians 5:19-21. I can pull you out of any pit the devil has put you in or helped you dig. I sent My Word to heal you and to deliver you out of your pits.
The deeds of the flesh are what serving mammon produces in your life. On the other hand, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Galatians 5:22-24.
The mammon system you are going after the things of the world and compromising your integrity to do so. You are not loving Me with all your heart or your neighbor as yourself. Under the mammon system each person is out to take all for her or himself without concern for others or for what I want you to do with it to confirm My covenant before the people.
Under the Kingdom system you are seeking ways to help and increase others and not focusing on yourself alone. Consequently I add everything to you as you seek to give. When you tithe and give offerings I open the windows (floodgates) of Heaven for you and pour out a blessing you cannot contain. You overflow to all.
The mammon system you toil all night to catch the fish, the Kingdom system the fish all come to you to jump into your net.
When you serve mammon you have the mentality that you have to grab things away from others to increase yourself and you are always seeking what you will eat, drink, or wear. When you serve Me you seek My Kingdom of love and things are added to you as you give. Under mammon it is the gifts you are seeking and not the giver, whereas with Me if you seek the giver you have all the gifts and more besides.
Serving mammon starts with pride and rebellion, these are the first characteristics of mammon worshipers. And these two lead to enmity, strife, jealousy, and every evil work. Saul, the first king of Israel, started with pride and seeking self-glory and soon it came to seeking to murder David to keep Saul’s own wealth and position.
The devil can receive your worship by causing you to think you do not have things and must grab and submit to evil to take them. He did this tactic with Eve and it worked. But actually what he was enticing her to take by sin, she already had in My blessing from the start.
It has pleased Me to give you the Kingdom. When you are with Me, everything I have is yours. I have stooped to make you great. I have made you heir of the world. But it is a domain of love where the greatest one among you is the one who serves the rest. I told Peter to feed My sheep, not to fleece them and beat them.
Thus says the Adonai Yahweh, “Woe, shepherds of Israel who have been feeding themselves! Should not the shepherds feed the flock? You eat the fat and clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fat sheep without feeding the flock. Those who are sickly you have not strengthened, the diseased you have not healed, the broken you have not bound up, the scattered you have not brought back, nor have you sought for the lost; but with force and with severity you have dominated them.” Ezekiel 34:2-4.
And My Son warned the Pharisees of the same thing, for they too had fallen into the devil’s trap of mammon and had become more concerned with keeping their position of authority and loving money and power. They went through widow’s savings and put burdens on people and then would not lift a finger to budge them. They sought only themselves, which is serving the devil as their father, but ended up not with riches and fame but bringing themselves to ruin for failing to recognize the time of their visitation.
What you compromise to keep, you will lose. The devil will make sure you do.
True prosperity is having everything you need and an abundance for every good work. A giver like Me. I love to give good things to those who ask Me, to those who believe in My love for them, to those who seek Me before things. Solomon asked Me for a heart that heard My voice so he would have wisdom and understanding to govern My people. But with the answer to that request came riches and honor and every good thing.
Humility comes before riches and honor. Why? Because then I can trust you with those things to be a blessing to others. I bless you to be a blessing like I did faithful Abraham. Genesis 12:1-3. And Jesus redeemed you from the curse so the blessing of Abraham and the promise of the Spirit would come to you. And Abraham blessed every family on earth.
I sent Jesus to you full of grace and truth and of His fullness you have all received. Grace on top of grace. And you have not even tapped into the hundredfold yet. Solomon did a little bit and became the richest man of all times. But that was not the fullness of the hundredfold, not even close. The hundredfold return is beyond the limits of the universe thus far deciphered as in a mirror dimly by men.
I love you. You cannot serve two masters. You cannot be neutral and take no position. You are either with Me or against Me. You choose, but the wiser choice is the One who made you, died for you, loves you beyond love, and will always care for you, and even more than that, will give you the hundredfold if you will follow what I show you. You follow the one you choose to be your master. The devil (mammon) you follow to death, Me you follow to life, abundant, overflowing life. Forever.