“No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” — Matthew 6:24

Even when the choice is obvious, sometimes it takes us a while to make up our mind, doesn’t it?

We had stopped at a furniture store to make some arrangements for a new living room suite we bought when I noticed that Jacob, our 2 year old, was having a difficult time making a decision.

He was in his car seat and had an ink pen (which is his favorite thing in the world that isn’t a toy — he is almost always holding one) in one hand and an 3″X5″ index card in the other. And his favorite toy lying below his feet caught his eye.

I could just see the wheels turning in his little mind — “What should I do? What should I do? What should I do?”

You see, he has two hands (as most children do :o) and there were now three objects that he wanted to latch onto.

Now, he obviously LOVES his ink pens. And he LOVES his favorite toy. So, you’d think it would be easy to set aside the index card and pick up his toy.

Only it wasn’t so easy. Jacob just sat there for a moment contemplating his next move. He looked at the ink pen, turning it over in his little hand, checking it out thoroughly.

He flipped the index card over, shook it from side to side a few times and carefully examined the writing on it. And he eyed that favorite toy lying near his feet.

Finally, he set aside the index card and picked up his toy. He set it aside for something better.

You see, you can’t hold onto everything. You have to put one thing down to pick up another.

Which is exactly what Jesus explained in Matthew 6:24, “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.”

You know, every day we face a similar choice as Jacob. Only the stakes are much higher. See, we have only so many “hands” in life, only so much time allotted to us, only so many loyalties and allegiances we can form.

On one side, there is the world. There are the things out there that we want to hold onto. Some of the good, some of the bad. None of them more important than our Savior. And yet there is the temptation to make those things (possessions, positions, pleasures, people, etc.) higher priorities than serving and living for Jesus Christ.

One only person, place or thing can be master of our lives — only one can be the #1 priority — only one can be first.

A choice must be made.

Christian, I encourage you to examine your life and see who or what is Lord. We can only serve one master. And His name is Jesus Christ.

If we find that anyone or anything other than Jesus is our top priority in life, there is only one thing for us to do…

…set it aside for something better.

Jimmy Brown jimmy@Living4Jesus.comhttp://www.living4jesus.com