The Tyranny of Wealth // How to Be Money Wise, Part 1

<p>In many respects – money makes the world go around. At least the economy. Can’t live without it. And yet as good a servant as it is – it’s a brutal master. And so many, many people live under the tyranny of wealth. So what if anything does God have to say about setting us free?</p> <p> </p> <h3><span style="color: #ff9900;"><strong>The Root of All Evil</strong></span></h3> <p>I don’t think that there’s a single person on the planet who is not affected by money or at least what money represents: value, wealth. Most of the time it seems that we don’t have quite enough. Some, in fact, many of the people listening to this programme today, around the world, simply don’t have enough to feed their families, or provide for their basic needs – a safe home, education, health services … Yet in the affluent west where we have so much money compared to most people in the world, there’s so much middle class debt that it’s become a pandemic. People are drowning in personal debt, credit cards maxed out.</p> <p>The cry of a whole generation is that we don’t have enough and yet by any objective measure, we have more that enough. Sure, economies fluctuate, interest rates go up and down and inflation strikes, unemployment, house prices … all those things effect people’s disposable incomes but why is money such a big issue and why do so many people who have enough, feel as though they don’t?</p> <p>That’s why today we are kicking off a teaching series called,<em> "Money Matters – a Kingdom Perspective"</em>. Because God’s wisdom in the area of money (as counter-intuitive as it may seem to you and me) is powerful, it’s effective and it sets us free from the tyranny of wealth.</p> <p>Now we all, to a greater or lesser degree, are products of our environment. Our circumstances, our culture and wealth in most cultures is a big thing. Not all, but most. It goes with position, power, status, recognition, comfort … let’s face it; they’re all pretty seductive things. Who doesn’t want to live in a nice house? Who doesn’t want to drive a ni