I composed myself, wiped my tears, took a big breath and finished reading, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” and “for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.” I looked up and saw a lot of wet eyes and felt that God had showed up in a special way. I looked into the pastor’s eyes and I could sense he was completely okay with what had just happened. God wanted to say something that evening about loving money and loving God.
A few months before, God had shown me something beyond my thinking that had humbled me. It pertained to having money as our security. That night at the seminar I was excited to share it. But before I go on, let me back up a bit. This terrible tragedy all started in February of 2012. Before this, on October 8th of 2011, my best friend, my dad, passed away. Shortly thereafter a friend ministering in Uganda was also killed in a car accident. Then a few weeks later, an elderly friend who I had just visited in the hospital, passed away suddenly. It was like three punches in my gut. February of 2012 was the knock-out punch; the possibility of many of my clients losing their investments! This was the beginning of Jack ‘dying’. But still, even when you just want to die, God shows up again, and throws you a life line!
The thing God had revealed to me in my quiet time was something best called ‘The spirit of Mammon’. I can’t really say I’d heard much about it so I asked the Lord for clarification. He gave me this picture. He said, “Jack if you take the cover off of an electrical outlet and cut one of the wires you will cut off the power to a certain area. But if you go outside the building you will find a large thick round power cable. If that is cut, you cut the entire power source to the building. Jack, the ‘spirit of mammon’ in the world, is like that large thick power cable. It feeds the entire system. My people have loved money more than Me! They have been preoccupied with building their own financial security instead of having Me as their security.” The ‘spirit of Mammon’ is that spirit which attaches itself to money and says, “I’m your security, not God! I’m your source, not God!” Now I knew why I was weeping so hard while reading Matthew 6:19-21 and 24. I really think God was weeping through me that evening! It’s not about money because money in itself is not bad. But when the spirit of mammon is in full force, God is pushed to the back burner and things become more important than Him.
He comes to us with such wonder and such beauty! His lifeline is His grace and mercy and He comes to hold us and love us. But still we walk with our backs to Him, seeking more of this world’s goods and security. The truth is this: there is no better security in this world, than having God as our Father and our Friend!