The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it (Psalm 24:1, niv).
How many of your decisions flow from your view of money?
From your vacation plans to your lunch plans. From your clothing options to your stock options. From what you’re putting away into retirement every year to what you’re putting into the offering plate every week.
Money is a significant component of our lives. In fact, Jesus said more about money in Scripture than He said about heaven and hell put together—not because money exceeds them in importance, but because He knows a truth that we are slow to recognize: Until God is in charge of how we view and handle our money, we are unlikely to consider Him in charge of anything else.
The way we view money makes a huge difference. That’s why we must learn to look at it vertically.
Every financial decision you make is ultimately a vertical decision—a decision of whether or not you’ll align your life with the reality that God owns everything.
Your money is God’s money, just like everything else you have. It is His. You are His. One day He’s coming back, like the property owner in Jesus’ parable of the talents, to settle His “accounts” (Matthew 25:19, esv), since “each of us will give an account of himself to God” (Romans 14:12)—and He’ll be asking what you did with His stuff. Did you treat it like it was His or yours? Vertically or horizontally?
People who view money horizontally see it primarily as something to spend on themselves. It’s something they work to their own advantage. It’s something to increase and grow and keep improving on. It’s something to trade as an exchange for personal pleasure or benefit. Seen horizontally, money equates to that pair of shoes you’ve just got to have. It’s an upgrade to the better cabin on the cruise ship. Seen horizontally, money is worth the few extra thousand dollars you may need to carry on your credit card bill for a while.
But every blessing that God intends to impart into your life by way of money will come as a result of viewing it vertically. Everything that ends up being best for you financially will flow from your decision to honor God with the outcome of whatever you’re buying, investing, giving, or saving.
Consider Joseph of Arimathea, the wealthy man who followed Jesus from a distance to protect his position, but then surrendered his own expensive tomb for Jesus’ burial (Matthew 27:57–60; John 19:38). He learned a valuable lesson: money is a means of giving testimony to God.
Not only your generous giving but also your prayerful spending—all of it is an ongoing opportunity for stewarding God’s money and for keeping your heart and life vertically aligned with His purposes.
Many people, even well-meaning believers, get fixated on money. Some become wrongly focused on relinquishing it, believing there is inherent virtue in bare-bones living. Others are lost in monetary pursuits, treating “more” as the chief evidence of God’s blessing and favor. But only those who embrace the truth that their money belongs to the Lord will experience His freedom from financial obsession.
Anchor yourself to this vertical view of money and be released to both invest and enjoy God’s good gifts, to His glory.
Journal
Pray
Lord God, thank You for entrusting me with what belongs to You, including the resource of money. Help me to always see it as just that: Yours, not mine. Thank You for correcting me from going down financial paths that I thought were right and best, only to find them avenues into bondage. Guide me into a life of unparalleled submission to Your truth, always focused vertically on You rather than primarily on myself. I ask this in Jesus’ name, amen.