Understanding things about money

Let's consider the following in order to build the proper foundation about money --

• what is it - money is not a dollar bill or a check or a penny, nickle, or dime. Money is not gold or silver or copper, nor is money cowrie shells or gems or salt blocks or cattle. Money is not a credit card. Money is not even an electrical current or binary code in a computer! All of these things represent money, but they are not money. Money is not a material substance. Money is a belief in the head. Money is a shared belief of two or more people. A German mark is nothing but a piece of paper with pretty pictures on it to a Yanomamo in the Amazon jungle. The Yanomamo sees it with the eyes of reality. The buyer and the seller must believe in money or it's not money. Money is credit.
  Credit is belief. The very first definition of credit in The American Heritage Dictionary is: ‘Belief or confidence in the truth of something” The word credit comes from the Latin credere, “to believe.”
  So does the word creed. Creed is another word for religion, for both refer to a shared (cultural) belief. Money is credit, a creed, a religion.

• whose is it -
  “If you know God owns everything in the world, controls all its assets, and can provide for you as His child, then there is no need for you to trust in luxury, be enticed by materialism, or stockpile for the future. Your daily life as a Christian need not revolve around those concerns, but in being content with what you have (1 Tim. 6:6-8; Heb. 13:5). You don’t have to own everything or be in control of every circumstance to have enough money for your basic needs. Instead, you can set aside all worry and anxiety about your needs and gladly receive whatever God gives you to invest in His kingdom (Matt. 6:31-34). That’s the scriptural answer to how we should view wealth and how we should start to deal with any prideful, selfish preoccupation with greed and materialism.”
  John MacArthur Whose Money is it, Anyway? A Biblical Guide to Using God’s Wealth (Nashville: Word, 2000), p. 12-13.

• how God views it - 
• Proverbs 10:15 - The wealth of the rich is their fortress;
  the poverty of the poor is their destruction.
• Proverbs 23:4 - Don’t wear yourself out trying to get rich.
  Be wise enough to know when to quit.
• Ecclesiastes 5:10 -  Those who love money will never have enough. How meaningless to think that wealth brings true happiness!
• Mark 4:16-19 - The seed on the rocky soil represents those who hear the message and immediately receive it with joy.  But since they don’t have deep roots, they don’t last long. They fall away as soon as they have problems or are persecuted for believing God’s word. The seed that fell among the thorns represents others who hear God’s word,  but all too quickly the message is crowded out by the worries of this life, the lure of wealth, and the desire for other things, so no fruit is produced.

• its potential use for two different kingdoms - if the “chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever,” then the chief reason for a working Christian to seek to create wealth is to glorify God. This is done not merely by creating wealth competently and with integrity, but setting out to create wealth with a purpose, adding value to the corner of the creation God calls us to tend. While this includes provision for our families, it can be skewed quickly when provision shifts to comfort as a primary objective. In this case, the focus has shifted from God to self, a dangerous spiritual condition Jesus warns against often. Read Luke 12:15-21 for a caution from Jesus about money and wealth. 

The great Reformer, Martin Luther, once wrote that "there are three conversions necessary: the conversion of the heart, the conversion of the mind, and the conversion of the purse." Of these three, it may well be that we find the conversion of the purse to be the most difficult. 

Charles Spurgeon writes, "With some (Christians) the last part of their nature that ever gets sanctified is their pockets."

I once heard it reported that, in a church that was undertaking a huge building project, the minister stood up one Sunday and said to the congregation, "I've got some good news and some bad news. The good news is that the church has all the money it needs to complete this project. The bad news is that it's still in your wallets."