I love the book of Hebrews. It is such a rich book filled with so much goodness – it certainly isn’t one to read quickly. Today in my readings I came across this verse in Chapter 13.

Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” Hebrews 13:5

Money has been an area I’ve battled in my walk with Jesus. I grew up in a family that were smart and responsible with money. Its not that they weren’t generous or that we didn’t have nice things, but it was always ‘considered’. When I started to follow Jesus, generosity in the way that He taught was alien to me. it has taken years to get my head around. However, even from my early days of following Jesus I knew l needed to start the generosity journey. Since then I’ve grown in the journey, and continue to learn all the time.

However, money is one of the things that still has the potential to stop me living freely!

Lets be clear. Its not wrong to have money or even enjoy money. Its wrong to love it and it is certainly wrong to love it more than Jesus. But it is something that has the ability to have power over us it we allow it the room to. However if we truly understood the goodness of God and His abundance towards us we would never worry about money again. I love how the writer ties these things together. Think about the question the writer is posing and the answer we might expect to be given.

Why should we live free from the love of money and be content?

You’d expect the answer to be something around how God will give us stuff or magic money out of the sky. But that’s not what the writer says at all. They say the reason we can do this is because God himself wont leave us or forsake us. The two are inextricably linked in the writers opinion.

His presence and nearness are enough to mean we should be free and content.

I love this and it is a reminder to me to keep pushing in and continue to free myself from the love of money and possessions.

Thank you Lord!