As I contemplated Matthew 6:24
this week, I realized the overwhelming jealousy God has for his children.
“You cannot serve two masters,
for either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to
the one and despise the other…”
We could have been created with
the ability to serve two masters. That
is not outside of God’s power to do, but he chose to create humans with the
ability to only serve on master, and here is why.
God will not allow those whom he
loves the ability to divide their love and service between two Gods.
Exodus 20:4-6 says,
“You shall not make for yourself
a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is
in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not bow
down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting
the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth
generation of those who hate me, 6 but
showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my
commandments.”
God’s jealousy for our love is so
intense that he will not allow himself the place of second best in your
heart. If you say you love Jesus and
love something in this world, then you do not love Jesus because you cannot
serve Jesus and this world.
Think about from this angle,
man’s jealousy is peaked when his wife is caught in the arms of a foreign
lover. This jealousy can lead a man to
spit his lover out of his mouth until she comes to him in repentance. Some men are even driven to murder because
their jealousy is enraged by even the idea of their wife being devoted to a
second man.
If we are but a blurry
resemblance of the image of God, how much more will God’s jealousy for you be
enraged if you are caught in the arms of another lover instead of the arms of a
loving God.
Therefore, you cannot serve two masters,
it just is not possible. For either you will hate the one and love the other,
God will not allow love for both.
