God and money

"You cannot serve God and mammon" (money, material things).

You cannot trust - or live for - God AND stuff. It's one or the other.
Only one thing can hold highest place in our affections.
Here in America, it's easy to give that spot to money, stuff, material things. To build up our retirement accounts, trusting them to care for us in our old age.
To work in order to earn money, so we can have money to "do whatever we want". So we can have security, or so we think.

Why do we have a hard time trusting God with everything, instead of trusting our money?
We think we are wiser than God. That if we really trust God, if we really live as He would have us to live, if we really used our money for the Kingdom instead of as a security blanket - that He would put us in the poorhouse, and we would have no happiness. We think we will be happier with money, than with God. That building up Monopoly money here is worth more than accumulating treasure in Heaven. We trust what we see, because it is now, rather than the God we cannot see, who has promised future things. And who has promised to provide all that we need if we live for the Kingdom first (Matt.6:24,33).

We forget that the One who gave everything to save our souls, does love us here. That if He takes our money, He will give us something better. Is it not the poor who love Him most? It is those who trust Him with everything that find Him to be everything. It is those with little who rejoice most in the God they cannot see. Maybe God would take our money in order to give us Himself. Is that not a better trade?

Our God is in the heavens;
He does all that He pleases...
...trust in the LORD!
He is their help and their shield.
The LORD has remembered us; He will bless us...
He will bless those who fear the LORD,
both the small and the great.
(Ps.115:3,11-13, ESV)