by Rose Murdock

As long as you are in the earth deception will be here to try and cloud the truth and keep you from clearly seeing life from God’s perspective.  One way this deception works is through creating idols in your life that you don’t know are there, or that you don’t recognize as being idols.  An idol is a false god.  A god is something that you look to for provision and guidance.  A god is something you believe has the power to give you what you can’t obtain by yourself.  A false god is something that you treat as god other than the one true God.

What I call the money idol is really a mindset in which people look to money as their god—knowingly or unknowingly.  If you look to money as your provider and look to money as the one who will decide whether or not you do something then money may be a false god to you.  If you say things like, "If I had the money I’d go overseas on vacation.  If I just had the money I would help with that mission project.  If I had the money I’d give a large amount to the church."  Do you look to money as the object that allows you to do what you want?

Of course, there are monetary limitations in your life.  You only have so much money in your possession and you have to live within those limitations.  You only have so much time and so much space in your life and you need to live within those limitations also.  The money idol will move on your desires and try and get you to go beyond those limitations.  By getting you to overextend yourself—going into debt, especially credit card debt.  By getting you to over-commit your time and to clutter up your house or your workspace with more things then you really need.  The money idol will bring debt and bondage into your life.  When you serve money you don’t get satisfied, you become increasingly dissatisfied.  When serving money, your God-given purpose becomes clouded and because of the lack of clarity in your perception of things, your life becomes cluttered and confused.  The money idol will keep you from seeking your God-ordained purpose and keep you seeking to fulfil your own lusts instead.  It’s not a god that brings peace, but confusion and discontentment.

The money idol is really a spirit of lust.  There may be many aspects involved that will vary from person to person, but I believe that at the root of the money idol we see lust involved in some way.  With a money idol, what you have is never enough.  You always want more.  It doesn’t care if it’s more ‘good’ stuff or even ‘godly’ stuff, as long as it keeps you discontent and wanting what you don’t have.  It doesn’t leave you alone just because you are a Christian.  It will find something that you really want and attempt to use that to drive you.

Lust, if it is allowed to continue, will become a stronghold in your life that is not easily taken out.  Of course, even the strongest root of lust can be removed by one touch from God, since nothing can stand against Him.  But the danger is that the longer lust is allowed to continue in your life, the thicker the cloud of deception becomes around you and the more difficult it is for you to see that this thing is, in fact, an idol.  If you can’t see clearly enough to recognize the true nature of this idol, then you will not believe that there is anything wrong with it.  You will remain deceived.

Lust demands that it gets its own way.  It will do whatever it can do to feed itself, thus becoming controlling, manipulating and impatient.  It will not go the way of love.  Much like an addiction, it is very selfish in nature and never satisfied.  Lust will even consume the miracles of God, forget them and then demand more.

Lust in a believer can take on a form of godliness.  By saying that you want to glorify God or do the work of God you will appear to be striving for something from a godly motive when in reality it may simply be lust that is motivating you.  You may use the excuse that the reason you want certain things is because you want to do the work of the ministry.  When in reality there may be an ulterior motive.  If you will examine your method of obtaining your desires, (and your attitude during the process), then that may help you to see whether something ungodly is trying to influence you.

"Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts." James 4:3

If you’re not getting answers to your prayers, consider this verse.  Love is an unselfish, motivation characterized by a humble submission to the will of God.  We must keep love as the root motive for all we do.  Faith without love is selfish.  Without a love motivation, a person will seek out love to serve their faith.  Instead of realizing that faith is a tool with which to serve love.  We know that ‘faith works by love’ (Galatians 5:6) but that doesn’t mean that love is a necessary evil that you have to learn to live by in order to get what you want by faith.  You could say that faith works for love. Love is to be the deciding factor in what you use faith to accomplish.  Remember what Jesus said to the disciples who wanted to call down fire from heaven and consume the Samaritans who didn’t receive Jesus?  He told them they didn’t know what manner of spirit they were of.  He didn’t come to destroy men’s lives but to save them. (Luke 9:51-56).  If love is not a motivating factor in your faith then you are not walking in the way of the Kingdom of God.  The danger here is trying to take Kingdom principles to serve our own appetites and whims.

When a person has lust, pride or selfish ambition as their motive and then hears a message of faith, they are in danger of developing a stubborn and determined lust that may look a lot like persistent faith and patience.  In reality though, lust is not patient at all and it will eventually become evident that they are not moving from a faith that is submitted to the will of God but from their own lust and impatience.

If this is you, it’s actually the mercy of God in these cases for you not to get what you are pursuing.  Because hopefully you will come to a point of seeking God and crying out to Him to try and find out why it’s not working like it’s supposed to.  If a person tries and tells you that you are operating from a spirit of lust you may accuse them of being full of doubt and unbelief.  You may accuse them of not having enough faith, or of trying to kill your dreams.  You may think they’re sent of the devil to try and discourage you and you may become all the more stubbornly determined to press on until you get what you want.  But God, at times, will mercifully keep the thing we’re pursuing from us so, hopefully, we will seek Him and He will be able to break through that cloud of deception and show us the lust in our own heart—The selfish ambition, the pride, the intolerance, blame and criticism.

Lust can take hold when a person becomes impressed with the power of God and His miraculous doings.  It’s when you hear of the power of our great God and are no longer content to live within human limitations.  Jesus told His followers to be faithful in the unrighteous mammon.  Money is really an exchange principle.  You’re trading things that are of equal value.  Be faithful in the principal of exchange.  And then you can be trusted with the true riches.  Then you can be trusted with the power of multiplication and increase.  It is the anointing of the Holy Spirit that will bring the miraculous.  But in order to be trusted with the true riches, the anointing and power of the Spirit of God, you have to be able to show that you have been faithful in the unrighteous mammon.  That you will live within the limitations set before you.  That you are not motivated by a spirit of lust which will drive you beyond those limitations, but that you have enough self-discipline to know where the boundaries are.  Consider each monetary difficulty that comes up in your life as an opportunity to prove that you are filled with the peace and contentment of God and are not striving always for what you don’t have.

You need to remain alert to the threat that lust poses to you as a Christian.  If you don’t know there is a deception working to create a money idol in your life then you won’t know to stand against it.  You may actually feed this idol without realizing it, thinking that you are working for the Kingdom of God.  As far as God is concerned, the end does not justify the means.  It’s not just the end result that counts;  it’s the method you used to get there.  If you held up a bank and gave all the money to the church that would not be O.K. with God!  If you go outside the boundaries that are in your life at the moment and think it’s O.K. because you’re ‘doing it for the Lord’ then you need to go back and examine your heart motives.

God is not against you having good things in your life.  He would like for your church or ministry to have the best equipment and resources.  He would like for you as an individual to have nice things in your life.  But if you are not faithful in the unrighteous mammon He won’t be able to commit to your trust the true riches.  You need to be able to put down the spirit of lust and impatience and do things the right way, within your current limitations.  You need to be able to show that you will not allow a spirit of lust to drive you.  You have an opportunity right now to show the Lord that you are willing to remain at peace and to be content and truly thankful for all He has given to you.

Remaining thankful to the Lord for everything He’s done for you, no matter how ‘big’ or ‘small’ it may seem, is a powerful weapon against this spirit of lust.  The attitude of thankful praise is beautiful to the Lord, and it’s also a weapon for you.  You could sum it up in the words of the apostle Paul, "…let the peace of God rule in your hearts…and be ye thankful." (Colossians 3:15).

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