“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” – Jesus: Luke 16:13

One of the many really good things about Sunday worship is the opportunity it provides to refocus and to get our lives back into perspective.

Monday through Saturday it is too easy to allow the values and the priorities of a misplaced faith in – and trust of – the secular world to relentlessly root its way into the core of who we are and mess up our thinking.

We all know that, over time, exposure and repetition typically translate into adoption – it’s one of the fundamental principles of brain-washing and indoctrination. Well, have we ever stopped to think that our constant participation in that which promotes a counter-Christian world view can achieve the same end?

Our day-to-day economic activity can easily predispose us to a transactional mentality that affects not only the way we live but our theology and the way we practice faith too. But the Good News is not transactional, it is transformational!

The scripture that we talked about in church Sunday morning (above) did a good job of challenging my thinking around what we value, and how that focus can effect every aspect of our lives. Our Interim pastor – Betty Connette – talked about it in her message and her words underlined my own thoughts.

Kingdom Economy:

There is, Betty pointed out, a “Kingdom Economy” that looks at values and priorities and “the bottom line” in ways that do not nearly resemble the economic engine that drives our culture. Not only our culture, but our politics, as well as our way of relating to each other

For me, when Christians get too caught up in a transactional approach to life then even the Good News about Jesus can become subordinate to the economic dictates of give-and-take, keeping score and quid-pro-quo.

But for followers of Jesus, the bottom line has to be relationships. Jesus makes this clear when he says the best way people have of knowing/understanding that we really are his disciples is via the way that we love one another.

For followers of Jesus, the bottom line has to be relationships. Jesus makes this clear when he says the best way people have of knowing/understanding that we really are his disciples is via the way that we love one another.

Always it is about the evidence. We can say “I love you” – or “I love God” – a thousand times, but it is the demonstration of love in action that is always decisive.

Not dollars but devotion. Not blood but love. Not words but action. Not how much can we get but how much we can give.

How much of ourselves can we give? – DEREK