Courage and the idol of money

​As Joshua give his farewell address to Israel in Joshua 24 he stresses their need to have courage in obeying God. And it does take courage to obey the Word of God, doesn’t it? It takes courage in our culture today surrounded by so much sin, surrounded by so much depravity, and surrounded by so much of worldly influence, to love God exclusively. Joshua clearly states their need to be courageous because all around them were false gods. It would be very easy for Israel to divide their loyalty between the God of Israel and the false gods of the nations around them. It would take courage to worship God exclusively. It's easy for us to read this and go “Well, I don't worship idols.” Is that really true?  What is an idol?  An idol is anything in your life that you elevate to the same level of priority as God.  Anything that is as important to you as God is an idol.  Now, that means in our culture today we have many idols.  Money can certainly be an idol.  For many Christians, they have a divided loyalty between materialism and God. You might remember that Jesus talked about this in the gospels when He said you can't serve two masters. You can’t serve God and money.