Can God become a means?

WORD 2day: Friday, 24th week in Ordinary time

September 20, 2019: 1 Timothy 6: 2-12; Luke 8: 1-3

Paul writes in a time when servants (slaves) were common in an affluent household. A practice seemed to have spread that the masters of the household and the slaves together accepted Christ as their saviour and their relationship turned as brothers and sisters in Christ, rather than masters and slaves! The risk within this phenomenon was that some merely as a means to do away with their status as 'slaves', decided to be baptised! It was using God as means to win other ends. That was unacceptable to Paul! 

Reducing God to means of attaining other ends is no Christ-like attitude. Today, the world is not bereft of this risk - of making "Godliness a means of gain" (1 Tim 6:5). At times our devotions too seem to fall under this category... pleasing God, bribing God, enticing God, seeking God because you wish to have something, doing things that are good just so that God would give you the good you wish - all these are USING God - Can God be reduced to a means! Is God not the true end and the ultimate end of all!

Look instead to the first Christians who provided for God's work "out of their means" (Lk 8:3), money or wealth, power or position, pleasures or possessions - everything has to be at the service of the glory of God! This is possible only for those who are ready to "fight the good fight of faith" (1Tim 6:12). Yes, it is always a fight, against the popular sense of making God into an vending machine! God can never be made into a means!