unsaved money

there is currently a billboard up around town emblazoned with the following "quote": "save money, and money will save you."
money will save you. interesting statement. every time i go out and purposefully spend money- i look for deals and never pay full price for anything- i try to save money. despite that its still tight times for the conti household and money sure aint growing on trees. if there was ever a time for all that money i saved to now save me- now is the time! but money has not saved me. why is this?
1 Timothy 6:10 states why. "For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs." And that is why money won't be saving me anytime soon. It's really quite hard to imagine "a root of all sorts of evil" SAVING me! i believe that in the heart of most men lies the desire to want to be pulled from the circumstances they are caught in and be rescued. so why would we believe that evil could save us?
faith. it's a hard pill to swallow. it's very easy to look at a one dollar bill and know that it exists and that it can provide what it promises to provide. God, on the other hand, lies beyond our grasp and view; asking us to trust that He will provide what He promised He will provide and we must rely on faith, not sight. and thusly i believe faith is the differential between our trust in money or God. after all the verse above clearly states that money will sometimes cause some to leave the faith. faith: the evidence of things unseen. therein begins our struggle.
in these economic times there is a battle between money and faith that we must make ourselves aware of. we look at our checkbooks and wallets and beg the stock market to surge and a new president to bailout our drowning economic system. we look at what we have and wish for just to survive. we look at what we can see and it destroys our hope. we stampede store workers just to save money so it will save us. we apply for more and more credit cards to give the appearance that money can save us. we exhaust the resources we can see, desperately begging money to save us and come up short even still. we have fallen away from faith.
faith. why does God go so far as to say "Blessed are you poor, because the Kingdom of God is yours." (Luke 6:20)? because the rich have already established their god and their kingdom of money. they have no need for what they cant see. Jesus states: "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God". those engorged in the love of money (see my previous blog "a love of money") have no use for faith because what they can see is what they choose to believe in.
God tells David: "For every beast of the forest is Mine, The cattle on a thousand hills. I know every bird of the mountains, And everything that moves in the field is Mine. If I were hungry I would not tell you, For the world is Mine, and all it contains.". (Psalm 50:10-12) Basically God is telling us He owns the world. That He is far richer than any one man. The world is His. all we need to do to tap into His endless provision is believe in Him. That He is our saviour. How do we do this? through faith.
faith. the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. our love of money will not save us. it's a stormy downdraft that will rip us from the sky and slam us into the ground, destroying us. just like birds that leap from trees limbs, trusting that the unseen air will lift them up- we can leave the ground behind and soar if we trust in the plan of our unseen Saviour.