{"id":17427,"date":"2017-09-11T14:23:52","date_gmt":"2017-09-11T14:23:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/watchmanmedia.org\/?p=17427"},"modified":"2021-03-04T22:24:30","modified_gmt":"2021-03-04T22:24:30","slug":"escaping-from-the-love-of-money","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/watchmanmedia.org\/?p=17427","title":{"rendered":"Escaping from the Love of Money"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-17430\" src=\"https:\/\/watchmanmedia.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/United_States_one_dollar_bill_reverse2-2-1024x455.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"455\" srcset=\"https:\/\/watchmanmedia.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/United_States_one_dollar_bill_reverse2-2-1024x455.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/watchmanmedia.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/United_States_one_dollar_bill_reverse2-2-300x133.jpg 300w, https:\/\/watchmanmedia.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/United_States_one_dollar_bill_reverse2-2-768x341.jpg 768w, https:\/\/watchmanmedia.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/United_States_one_dollar_bill_reverse2-2-1536x683.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/watchmanmedia.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/United_States_one_dollar_bill_reverse2-2-2048x910.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/>My good friend Tony Cimmarrusti\u00a0has two degrees from Harvard, a Wall Street background, and over 20 years of hedge fund experience. But most importantly, he loves Jesus with all his heart, and is one of the most generous people I know.<\/p>\n<p>I greatly appreciate Tony\u2019s message in <a href=\"http:\/\/viewpure.com\/Ldj9Kf0VvtY?start=0&amp;end=0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">this short video<\/span><\/a> (and the edited transcript that follows), which is a challenge for all of us to live with an eternal perspective about the resources God gives us to manage:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Ldj9Kf0VvtY\" width=\"760\" height=\"415\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Christianity is both reasonable and logical. But there\u2019s not enough logic and not enough reason for anyone to believe it on our own\u2014it\u2019s a miracle of the Holy Spirit when that happens. Similarly, I think that for people who have fallen under the trance of the love of money and don\u2019t even know it, it\u2019s also a miracle when they break that power. It only happens by a spiritual transaction, and by God helping them pry their fingers off of whatever it is they\u2019re latched onto. It\u2019s with the Holy Spirit\u2019s help.<\/p>\n<p>What does my life stand for? What if my life ends tonight, and I stand before God, and God says to me, \u201cWhy should I give you Heaven?\u201d I know what I would say: \u201cBecause your Son died for my sins. He was my Savior and my Lord. And you promised me that you would prepare a place for me. And <em>He<\/em> promised that to me, and that He was going to come back and take me to be there. So here I am.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Now, the next thing that He\u2019s going to ask is, \u201cOkay, so what did you do with what I gave you on Earth?\u201d And, wow, that\u2019s going to be a tough exam. I know that it\u2019s going to be filled with grace. And yet, when I stand before God, I don\u2019t want to hand Him a bunch of stock certificates and think He\u2019s going to say, \u201cWell done, my good and faithful servant.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I want to be able to say, \u201cLord, this is what we did with what we had. You gave us five talents; here\u2019s ten back.\u201d We want to be in that number. The last thing we want to do is be the guy who had the talent and went and buried it.<\/p>\n<p>Although there\u2019s nothing inherently wrong with money, there\u2019s something desperately wrong with devotion to money. \u201cBut those who want to be rich fall into temptation, a trap, and many foolish and harmful desires, which plunge people into ruin and destruction.\u00a0For the love of money is a root\u00a0of all kinds of evil, and by craving it, some have wandered away from the faith\u00a0and pierced themselves with many griefs\u201d (1 Timothy 6:9-10, CSB).<\/p>\n<p>As Tony says, we all need God\u2019s help to escape from the clutches of materialism and money-love so that we can find freedom and discover the lasting joy of true, eternal riches.<\/p>\n<p>Tony refers to the parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30), which shows that we\u2019re each entrusted by God with different financial assets, gifts, and opportunities, and we\u2019ll be held accountable to God for how we\u2019ve invested them in this life. We\u2019re to prepare for the Master\u2019s return by enhancing the growth of His kingdom through wisely investing His assets. What a privilege that is. So let\u2019s live to hear the Father\u2019s \u201cWell done!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2017, <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.epm.org\/blog\/2017\/Sep\/11\/escaping-love-money\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Eternal Perspective Ministries<\/span><\/a>.<\/span> All rights reserved.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div class=\"pdfprnt-buttons pdfprnt-buttons-post pdfprnt-bottom-left\"><a href=\"https:\/\/watchmanmedia.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fposts%2F17427&print=pdf\" class=\"pdfprnt-button pdfprnt-button-pdf\" target=\"_blank\" ><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/watchmanmedia.org\/wp-content\/plugins\/pdf-print\/images\/pdf.png\" alt=\"image_pdf\" title=\"View PDF\" \/><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/watchmanmedia.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fposts%2F17427&print=print\" class=\"pdfprnt-button pdfprnt-button-print\" target=\"_blank\" ><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/watchmanmedia.org\/wp-content\/plugins\/pdf-print\/images\/print.png\" alt=\"image_print\" title=\"Print Content\" \/><\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My good friend Tony Cimmarrusti\u00a0has two degrees from Harvard, a Wall Street background, and over 20 years of hedge fund experience. But most importantly, he loves Jesus with all his heart, and is one of the most generous people I know. I greatly appreciate Tony\u2019s message in this short video (and the edited transcript that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":17430,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-17427","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-discipleship","8":"wp-image-borders","9":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/watchmanmedia.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/United_States_one_dollar_bill_reverse2-2-scaled.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4bgnN-4x5","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/watchmanmedia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/watchmanmedia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/watchmanmedia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/watchmanmedia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/watchmanmedia.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17427"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/watchmanmedia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17427\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17448,"href":"https:\/\/watchmanmedia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17427\/revisions\/17448"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/watchmanmedia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/watchmanmedia.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/watchmanmedia.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/watchmanmedia.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}