Two Masters!

(Matthew 6:24) “No man can serve two masters:”

This is a very interesting statement the Lord Jesus made when addressing not the multitudes, but His very own disciples. I think the Lord purposefully makes distinctions when teaching; depending on who it is he is teaching. We see in the parable of the talents that one received two talents, another five and another ten. There are different measures that God gives to His children and therefore differing roles amongst believers. Not all are meant to teach, but some must. Does that mean there is a set of rules for one and another put for others? No, just differing measures, we have all been called to a life of holiness. Salvation is by grace through faith and it is a gift of God, not of works, least any man boast about his accomplishments, as a Christian you may find yourself demanding validation in your accomplishments as a believer. You can never do anything that will leave you claiming salvation by works. This must sink in to our futile brains; it is the core to our foundation. When we apply this mindset to our lives we no longer see grace as a free gift, unmerited favour but we look for justification through our actions to verify salvation. This can get tricky as we know that salvation by works is of the devil and not from God. So every apparent Christian organisation that teaches salvation by works does not carry God’s blessing. All that the law taught us was that we could never keep it and therefore it worked as a catalyst to prove to us that we need help and therefore needed someone to save us. The law is good and God used it as a tutor to assist us in realising that we were in big trouble, forcing us to cry out for help. There is only one way we can find acceptance before a righteous God and that is through the finished work of Calvary, in and through the person of Jesus Christ, there is no other justification acceptable before God. And as soon as we shift in our mindset on this truth we become proud and will soon come tumbling down, why? “God resists the proud by gives grace to the humble.” I do not think we are capable of living in this frame of mind, by constantly embracing this truth. We will always move between the realms of excusing of accusing ourselves as believers. We should however give no opportunity to justify this thinking. I would rather err on the side of guilt; guilt is a friend that will often lead you down the path of repentance. Self justification by excusing ourselves as we look at other and say, “I am not like that”, it makes one proud and that means I will face God’s resistance and let’s face it who wants that, no-one, we all look for His assurance as it is our comfort and it secures our hope. So we must never try and justify ourselves by what we do, when we do this we undermine the magnitude of Christ accomplishment on earth. We start in the spirit, we are born again (regeneration if you like) and we must remain in the spirit; remain with the mindset that God who rich in mercy has freely given us life and eyes to see heaven. There is a danger for all believers to want to prove their worth by finding justification in the flesh. Remember the church of Galatia; “I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel:” They got saved and then deliberated that by circumcision it would make them feel and look godlier. They are vehemently rebuked for this attitude. The danger is real, so let us always remind ourselves and others that we are saved by grace through faith and it is a gift from God, it is His work and has nothing to do with us and our accomplishments. With that understood we must look at the other side of the coin, James says; (James 1:7-8) “For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.” In other words now that we have been saved and belong to the Lord and our heavenly Father, as we have received the gift of the Holy Spirit and He now lives within us, we must walk with confidence in the finished work of Calvary. Our lives must begin to take on the shape of our Lord and Saviour; we must begin to show fruit that will glorify our God. We must continually fight against all that opposes Him in His finished work. James again put it like this; (James 2:14-17) “What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him? If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.”

Our lives must begin to bear fruit proving that we have been saved! See the difference! We can never be justified by what we do, because we have received a free gift from God and He has facilitated us to see the hope of eternal life. We no longer belong to ourselves. Our responsibility as believers is to be about our Fathers business.

It is with this in mind that I would like us to view the principle from our scripture text; “No man can serve two masters:” Why? We are trained by our Lord to examine the facts in our lives. If we hold to two opinions then we will err in our fairness to one of our masters. We will love the one and despise the other because they require different tasks. One master looks for us to find success and achievement in this life while the other demands that we lay down our lives for others storing up treasure for a world that is yet to come. They are exclusively opposite and so can never find harmony as they pull in differing directions. The bottom line we cannot serve God and mammon. One will eventually give way to the other. However the choice for all of us who believe is an easy one. Let us serve God and let Him take care of our needs as He knows how to give good gifts unto His children. We must never think that we will lose out if we do not secure our own future by what we invest in this life. That is not faith, and it proves that we doubt our God’s ability to supply all our needs, easy said than done, but only if we think with our carnal minds.

Help us please our heavenly Father find a resolve that would be so resolute that it would shadow Joshua and Caleb’s example. We seek to serve only you as our master but we need grace to help in time of need, Amen.

Signing off

Tyrone