Saturday: 10th November, 2018
Reference text: Luke 16:9-15
Luke 16:13 No servant can serve two masters: for either he shall hate the one, and love the other: or else he shall lean to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and riches.
Consider this dialogue that sought to determine who the favourite teacher of a colleague was:
A: who is your favourite school teacher?
B: Miss J, Miss B, Miss R, or Mr T
A: Among those, whose lesson do you enjoy the most ?
B: Miss B and Mr T.
A: So finally, which of those two do you prefer?
B: I will say its 50:50 because I like them both equally.
Such a conclusion drawn from similar dialogues can be interesting because when one asks a question about ‘favourites’, it is often expected that there will be ‘one firm answer’. That is the what Jesus highlights: the fact that it is impossible to love both God and Money EQUALLY. One would have to be placed before the other in terms of precedence, and that order, is determined by ourselves.
There was little reason to agree with Jesus on the basis of just the words: ‘no one can serve two masters’, probably because there is a lot of vertical hierarchy in organisations which means one may be serving multiple bosses. However, the voice version clarified Jesus’ point perfectly:
“Imagine you’re a servant and you have two masters giving you orders. What are you going to do when they have conflicting demands? You can’t serve both, so you’ll either hate the first and love the second, or you’ll faithfully serve the first and despise the second. One master is God and the other is money. You can’t serve them both.”
Beloved, problems arise when there is a conflict in demands: when one gets to a cross road where the only choice available is either one or the other. That is when one begins to define where their true loyalty lies. Sweetheart, in our lives, God and money seem to be in competition for first place, but that is a competition that should not even exist in the first place.
Remember# do not put God, the creator and money, a creation, on the same pedestal.
#sly
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