Matthew 6:24 Who or What Commands Do You Obey ?
Jesus is telling His followers in Matthew 6:24, no person can have two masters, because by default one will be loved and the other hated. The word of God talks about master and slave many times. Slavery is a black eye in American history and nothing reveals the hate and harm done, then by the powers words of Frederick Douglass. He was one of the lucky slaves that was taught how to read and write, thanks to his owner’s wife. He embraced the power of words and learned that education can make mountains move. When he ran away from slavery and found freedom and got married, he joins the abolitionist movement to end slavery in America. He used knowledge of words and wrote several autobiographies. His books were bestsellers told of his first-hand horrible experience as a slaver. One of Douglass’s famous quotes that caught my eye is that he didn’t know he was a slave until he saw other white kids and adults do something he couldn’t.
How does a Christian know if he has God or wealth as master, that is the question, we as followers have asked ourselves. It depends on who’s commands we keep and who’s the command we break. When it comes to wealth or money, most people have jobs to make the money he/she evens to make income to support themselves and their loved ones. The Lord told His children it was fine to labor, He even said we had to labor and sweat to eat the food that came from the earth (Genesis 3:17-19). But the Lord gave His children instruction when to labor and when to take time off and give our time to God as day or worship.
There are many ways to tell if wealth is someone’s master, but the Sabbath of rest is the best way to tell. The fourth commandment tells God’s children to take the Sabbath day off from labor and spend it with Me. Now a person who truly loves the Lord and wants to have a close relationship with Him should desire a weekly day off to spend from sunset to sunset a 24 hour day of worship with your Creator. Some Christian say, we can make any time of day to have Sabbath rest with God. Some Christians even say God changed His day of rest from the Old Testament to the New Testament, but Scripture always answers the Christian’s questions. What does the New Testament say about the Sabbath rest changing or being moved?
If you are following the command of the Lord, and He is your master, you will remember the time Him the time He wants to spend with you. Otherwise, if wealth is your master, and you ask for labor, or if you wanna get overtime, then we don’t need to get the answer for that question. I know from personal experience what it’s like to stand by my beliefs and refuse to do labor on the Sabbath. Especially when my employer tells me I will be written up or lose my job if I fail to obey. My Bible tells me to trust God, cause man didn’t make heaven and earth, and man can not do anything to me.
Psalm 118:6 The Lord is for me; I will not fear; What can man do to me?
Don’t be a servant to the almighty dollar as some call it, but rather be a servant to the Almighty God. Let the Lord Creator be your master and you will have a life full of beatitudes, which is what the sermon on the mount teaches, you will be blessed when you follow the words of Christ. God bless you all, the Lord loves you and so do I. Sam H.
Isaiah 56:2 “How blessed is the man who does this, And the son of man who takes hold of it; Who keeps from profaning the sabbath, And keeps his hand from doing any evil.”