The devil's goal is always to break, divide,
to destroy Love; The Source of Life,
and instead to plant resentment,
un-forgiveness, jealousy, anger, etc.
The ways and methods to obtain it are many,
but, as is well documented in The Bible;
the "love" of money and earthly possessions seems
to be the biggest stumbling block, which hinders
and prevents us from inheriting the Kingdom of
God. This "love" is not love, of course, but
prioritizing, putting in front of the rest, and it is
a veritable stumbling block, a hindrance, and it
always hurts pure unconditional Love, from
where we all have our origin.
Because we can not follow two opposite masters
at the same time, we have to choose one.
Those who have a lively and authentic faith in God,
trusts God, who commands us to put Him first,
quite literally and concretely; to trust in His providence
and to put Him before all other things.
We still have to take care of the rest, we have duties,
obligations, work, studies, etc. which we have to
carry out with care, if we did not, we would not
render to God nor Caesar what belongs to each of them.
The immorality around anything to do with money
is so ingrained and accepted, we accept this corruption
because it seems to be the norm, in Ireland anyway.
We even laugh at it, as if it doesn't really matter,
but the truth is that we sell our souls to it, we loose
the possibility to inherit the Kingdom of God,
if we take this route.
"When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because
he had great wealth."
Matthew 19:22
But it is not only about having accumulated wealth throughout
a lifetime, which makes it so hard to let go of it, also those who
have not acquired any wealth can be equally trapped in the
adhesion to a belief that the only value there is can be measured
in monetary terms and possessions. Even a poor person might be
obsessed by money; thinking about it, his lack of it, jealous of
what the others have, of greed, of meanness, this is equally
poisonous to his soul as the person who sits and guards his pot
of gold.
To have good morals means doing the right thing in any given
situation, because all our actions have consequences, even the
smallest ones. What about faithfulness and loyalty? Do we treat and respect
others the way they deserve? The ones that were always putting
us first? Or do we only take into consideration our own selfish
wishes, what suits us best, regardless of what is right?
The truth is that God provides; through human beings, who
He made in His Image, He dwells at the center of our being,
and with our cooperation through the use of our willpower,
He acts through us.
Without a shred of false humility I say that I am a poor sinner,
the only thing that I had, and still have, is an unfailing belief
and trust in God.
Regarding money; I always detested having anything to do with it.
I did not put it first, but to this day I have always had more than I
ever needed, and in proportion to my growing faith and trust in God,
the financial and material aspects of my life have fallen beautifully
into place by itself, with very little contribution from me.
"Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away
in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much
more valuable than they?"
Matthew 6:26
God did it all.
