Matthew 6:24

“No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.”

“Where riches hold the dominion of the heart, God has lost His authority.” – John Calvin

I often ask the question, “What are you striving for?” I think it’s the type of question that cuts through and clarifies the longing of our hearts. Asked another way: What do you wish you had more of? Leisure time? Square footage? Money? I wonder how often any of us would say that it’s God we want more of.

One time in the adult Sunday school class I used to teach I used the whiteboard to visually represent the question at hand today. In the upper left-hand corner I drew a dot, and from the dot I drew a line that went back and forth across the board until it reached the bottom corner where it ended with an arrow and the symbol for infinity. Can you get that image in your mind?

The dot represented the world and all that it had to offer, including our limited time here on earth. The line represented eternity in Heaven with God and things of eternal significance. I then asked the $64,000 question: “What are you living for? The dot…or the line?”

I think we would all agree that most of the time we are living for the dot. It’s hard to live for the line on a daily basis. It’s hard to keep an eternal perspective…to question whether each day is lived for the Glory of God vs. our own comfort or security or pleasure. God is not some sort of Cosmic Killjoy who wants you to sit home all day and read Scripture and pray, preferably in a 3-piece suit or a long dress with a doily on your head. His desire is that we would worship Him in spirit and in truth and enjoy Him and all that He has created.

So who IS your daddy? You can’t have two, and that is the point of today’s verse. Who or what are you serving? Who or what are you striving after? God is not pleased by fence sitters or posers or double-minded people. His command is to “seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness” (Mth 6:3).

So live for the line…not for the dot.