Who Do I Serve?

Matthew 6:24

“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.”

I believe people today struggle with thought of serving any master. The idea of a master is not a part of our culture today. However, as children our parents filled that role. As we get older others, like teachers or managers at work, have a major influence on our lives. But our nature is to say we are the masters of our own lives.

Rich Mullins, a Christian song writer, has a line in a song that fits people today. The line is, “Surrender does not come natural to me. I fight for the things I don’t really want instead of the things I need.” He was singing about our surrender to our Lord’s ways versus the things of this world that are constantly in front of us and distracting us from the Lord’s leading in our lives.

The truth is we do serve a master. Someone or something that is the guiding force in our lives. That is called our world view. As Jesus said in Matthew 6:24 above, we can’t serve two masters. We will be devoted to only one. We may let another influence us occasionally, but the final “surrender” will be to who or what controls our thinking.

As the loving Master of the universe, God wants to be in that place in our life to lead us into what Scripture calls “the abundant life”. The life we were created to enjoy. Our struggle with allowing God to be our Master is our focus on worldly desires. We allow people or the things this world calls important, like money in the Scripture in Matthew, to be the driver of our daily thoughts and decisions. That becomes our master, not our Lord.

I believe it comes down to where we find our security. It can be in money, other people, positions we obtain, power, etc. The biggest distraction from following God is “self”. We think we know better than our Lord does what we need to be fulfilled. Our focus is on pleasing ourselves and not on seeking God’s best. If we are focused on pleasing ourselves then we are the master of our life, not our Lord.

The question that comes to me then is if I no longer had (fill in the blank) how would I feel? What part of my life would concern me if it was suddenly removed? I recently retired from over 40 years of management positions and with that change had a significant reduction in income. Both were adjustments for me, but the Lord walked with me through the changes and helped me understand the security for my family was in Him, not what I could do. I have learned to agree with what Joshua told his fellow Israelites.

Joshua 24:15

“But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”

My paraphrase of that passage in the choices we face today is, “Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods of money and possessions, or the gods of ego and power, or simply the gods of distractions in the land you are living. But for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”