We know it’s not right to love money.

When the image of Midas counting coins comes to mind, we remember the tragic consequence—love for gold reduced his daughter to lifeless metal. If fiction gives hints, the apostle Paul’s words to Timothy leave no doubt: “The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil” (1 Timothy 6:10).

We don’t want to love money. We know that trust in money is misplaced. We know that looking to money as if it were our god is wrong.

Yet do you ever find yourself doing just that?

The love of money

We may not wake up each morning bowing down to our wallets, and we may not whisper declarations of love into the ears of our financial statements.

But we may be quite familiar with fear. We can become afraid after losing a huge amount of money; we wonder how life will now need to change. We can become afraid when we hardly have enough money to pay next month’s rent.

We may also be familiar with false confidence. We can think our financial futures are solid because we’ve saved for years and our investment choices seem to be the right ones. Even if our savings accounts are not so large, we still may place confidence in them, sure that with our thriftiness they will carry us through.

Do you love money?

We know it’s not right to love money, but at times we find ourselves doing just that. We didn’t think we could become so afraid, but we have. We did not think we could so thoughtlessly bump God down on our list of priorities, but we have. Our sinful flesh so easily trades the preserver of the universe for paper and numbers that moth and rust will surely destroy.

Just judgment should destroy us as well.

The love of our God

In our shame, the voice of true treasure speaks. There was a substitute who walked in our sandals. In the face of his own temptations to be self-confident and to fear, he repeatedly confessed, “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid.”

Even Jesus’ enemies recognized this. “He trusts in God. Let God rescue him now if he wants him” (Matthew 27:43). So much did Jesus trust his Father that he was willing to drink the bitterest of cups so that we might not have to swallow the penalty that fear and misplaced love deserve. Instead we savor the cup of salvation. We are forgiven. We are at peace.