Hebrews 13:5-6 “Keep your life free from the love of money. Be satisfied with what you have, for he himself has said, ‘I will never leave you or abandon you.’ Therefore we may boldly say, ‘The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me.’”
Money is God’s gift, his tool. It is not your Maker, what makes you, you. It is not your Savior, the one place you can always turn to for help. It’s not meant to boost your ego, or satisfy all your desires, or become the purpose of your existence, the reason you get up in the morning. It makes a useful servant. It becomes a miserable master.
To help us keep it in its place, keep it from becoming our love, keep it under control, the Lord sets up a little conversation with him here, a dialogue between God and his people. He gives his promise, “I will never leave you or abandon you.” That’s an old, old promise, as old as the Bible itself, some of the last words the Lord had Moses write before he died. Think for a moment about how all-encompassing these promises really are. When God first spoke these words, the children of Israel were about to enter the promised land. He was assuring them that even though war and bloodshed were staring them in the face, he would never leave or forsake them. They could trust him when their very lives and the lives of those they loved were in such danger.
Here this promise is applied to our daily needs. Even when it looks like we have come to the end of our resources, the cupboard is bare, the well is dry, the purse is empty, God promises to provide. His resources never run out. We can trust him for our daily bread.
That’s so different than money, isn’t it? Spend your money, and it’s gone. It can’t help but abandon you when you use it. The more you spend, the more it disappears. But depend on God all day every day, and you will never use him up or have any less of him than when you started. People may steal your money. There are a hundred ways you can lose it. If the stock market crashes and the banks fail, it could instantly disappear. None of those things will ever happen to God. “I will never leave you or abandon you.”
Then, in case it isn’t obvious, the Lord rehearses us in the proper response: “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?” This is essentially the position of faith, isn’t it? The Lord, not money, is the helper I trust. He can feed me without money if he chooses, like he fed Israel manna in the desert. He can heal me without money, whether by miracles like Jesus performed, or the natural healing properties he built in to my body. He has redeemed, “a lost and condemned creature, purchased and won me from all sin, from death, and from the power of the devil, not with gold or silver, but with his holy precious blood, and his innocent sufferings and death.”
As long as we remember this, we will love him, not money, and be satisfied with what we have.
