When I was young, I often heard people say that "its the money why he is like that". Money has gotten so much blame for the things that happen to human beings. It is easy to put the blame on money instead of the person's greed and lust for money. In fact, coveteousness has been a problem with mankind from the beginning of time. Cain was the first man to covet his brother, and we saw what happened in that situation.


In the last two years, alot of persons including me, have lost alot of money in these so called investment schemes. The truth is that we all were greedy, instead of taking our time like the ant to grow our savings, we wanted to have the riches overnight. The result is always the same, heartache, when we allow money to rule our lives. The bible teaches us in Timothy 6:10 that the love of money is the root of all evil. It is obvious, that the love of money drives us to evil. I have had friends who basically stopped talking to me because they became rich. They even stopped hanging out with their friends. This has not only happened in the world, but right in the church. In Jamaica, we say "dem switch". They really switch off, and are now controlled by their evil desires.


The great Solomon put it quite nice, in Ecclesiastes 5:10, "He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves abundance with its income. This too is vanity." I have a phrase that I coined many years ago, it goes like this, "vanities best friend is the mirror". We often spend a lot of time in front of the mirror, being so concerned with our ego, all this is truly vanity.


But coming back to the matter at hand, money is useful to pay the bills and enjoy one's self now and again, but in the end it destroys our relationship with our friends and our family, if we allow it to seduce us into falling in love with it.  It is clear that we become seduced by it, and once the love affair has started then we forget about the hurt that we give to others, as we are caught up in showing off that we now have it. In the end as Solomon states, we will never be happy even when we have it.


So wouldn't it be better to just earn enough to take care of our families, and if we have some reserves, great. But can a man work 24/7 just because he wants to be rich? When you live in North America you see that mentality everyday, people will work seven days a week, because they want to make lots of money. In the end, you never hear them say they thank God for his blessing of money. The grab for money becomes so addictive that they are constantly chasing a dollar. In the end, they get sick or die, and they never have a chance to enjoy it. Isn't that crazy. Life is more than money. It is about showing love to each other, giving of ourselves daily unto God, and if he blesses us with money, then it wonderful, we can take care of our families, our debts and if we have some left over then we can help our friends in need, and if we even have more left, then we can put it in a savings account.


Money can't buy love or happiness..