EITHER/OR
There’s a well-known property of cake: after you eat it, you no longer have it. You can’t have your cake and eat it, too. This commonsense adage has been around a very long time, reminding us that sometimes we must choose one thing, or the other—that we can’t have it both ways. A coin flip cannot be heads and tails. You cannot quit your job and keep it. You cannot stay inside and go outside—sometimes you have to pick a side.
Those who tinker in probabilities or logic call things like these mutually exclusive. If you want to stay a bachelor, you cannot get married—because bachelorhood and marriage exclude one another. You can’t have one with the other. Jesus said something to this effect about how we live our lives:
“No servant can serve two masters: either he will hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.” -Jesus
Jesus places a choice before us: we can serve God, or we can serve wealth—but not both. They are mutually exclusive. And wealth is merely one of many masters competing with God for our love and devotion. Consider Paul’s description of how it will be in the last days:
“People will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, slanderers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.” -Paul
Some of these seem to follow a pattern: Lovers of Self. Lovers of Money. Lovers of Pleasure. Unloving. Haters of good. And all of these things are contrasted with being lovers of God. It all hinges on what we love.
What we’re really talking about here is a word we don’t hear much anymore: idolatry. But, you might think, isn’t an idol just a figurine that some people pray to? It’s definitely more than that—an idol is anything we serve instead of God. Money, Pleasure, and Self are all idols—masters to love and serve, things to trust and treasure. In loving any idol, we cease loving God. We love the idol rather than God. And the world is full of these idols:
“Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world.” -John
Worldly pleasures, worldly possessions, worldly pride. In so many ways, we boast and brag, we crave and desire, and we are greedy to get—always seeking something for ourselves: Amaze me. Give me. Watch me. These are loves for the things of the world; these are idols.
There’s a bit more to the story from above, where Jesus taught that it’s impossible to love both God and wealth:
“Now the Pharisees, who were lovers of money, were listening to all these things and were ridiculing Him. And He said to them, ‘You justify yourselves in the sight of people, but God knows your hearts. That which is highly esteemed among people is detestable in the sight of God.’” -Luke
Jesus sees the Pharisees excusing themselves and trying to look good, but He also sees that their mocking is hiding the true love of their hearts: the love of money. Having a lot of money is highly esteemed by most people—and the Pharisees, on top of loving money, certainly wanted to impress people. But when our hearts want people to esteem or honor us, whether through wealth or any other thing, our hearts offend God. We make Self our master.
So, in the way of the world, we can pursue nice feelings, nice things, and nice looks. And it’s easy to see why these are alluring. But God insists we give up loving all these things—because of the consequences:
“Friendship with the world is hostility toward God. Whoever wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.” -James
“Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.” -James
“Double-minded.” Maybe that’s how you’re feeling right now. (I understand that these aren’t soft and easy words today.) Maybe you’re wondering if anyone could be so devoted—loving God absolutely, and hating all the worldly benefits on offer. Maybe you’re troubled by the intense nature of these teachings. Maybe you see how much you trust Money, or how highly you think of your Self, or how driven you are by Pleasure. Maybe it’s uncomfortable to admit that these things matter to you as much, or more, than God does.
James is sometimes considered harsh. But, right between the two things he said above, he reminds us of something essential: that our love for God (or lack of love!) is not the whole story, that all this “harshness” needs to be seen in light of God’s love, for us:
“He jealously desires us! He gives a greater grace. Submit therefore to God. Come close to God and He will come close to you.” -James
God wants you, still. His love is jealous for you. His grace is greater than your sin, so come back, come close. Stop submitting to those unworthy things, and submit to God. He desires to be close to you, in love. James isn’t only saying that we’ve made ourselves God’s enemies—he’s also stressing that God still wants to be friends. But, we must be one or the other—friend, or enemy.
“How long are you going to struggle with the two choices? If the Lord is God, follow Him!” -Elijah
So many hard words, in such stark black-and-white terms. Our hearts cry out for some flexibility, some accommodation, some exception—some softer words. Did Jesus really mean all this in such an absolute way? It seems so:
“The one who loves his life loses it, and the one who hates his life in this world will keep it to eternal life.” -Jesus
We simply can’t have our cake, and eat it, too.