Ezra 9.10-12 says, and now, our God, after all this what can we say for ourselves? For we have thrown your commands to the wind…Whatever you do, don’t cultivate their good opinion; don’t make over them and get them to like you so you can make a lot of money and build up a tidy estate to hand down to your children.

We should want to cultivate the good opinion of men but for the singular purpose of glorifying God. Our lifestyle, our morals, values and behavior, should reflect the character, nature and ways of God Himself for we are His adopted children and we call God our Father.

The single biggest adherence to sharing Jesus with others, to challenging the godless living, speaking and believing of our neighbors, is our fear of their disapproval leading to our harm in some way. The harm we most fear in America is the harm of losing business which is the loss of revenue which is the loss of personal income.

When we deny Jesus either by omission or commission in order to curry the favor of man so that we can gain financially, we show by our actions that we love money more than God. We cannot love money and God. We cannot love money more than God and expect to live forever with God in His kingdom.

We are to serve men in order to win their favor so that we can share with men the Good News of God’s love for men and offer of pardon to men through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Christian mission is the Great Commission. We are God’s ambassadors, He is making His appeal through us for the salvation of men.

Our purpose is to be that of the Lord Jesus Himself Who came not for His own glory but to seek and save the lost. So too our work should be our means through which we serve people so that we can share with people the hope of eternal life promised to us through Jesus Christ the Savior.

All the money we ever earn will be of no value to us one second after our death. All the good we do for God’s glory will be rewarded to us for all eternity upon our passing from this life into the next.

Are you making temporary or eternal investments?