But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils.
What do I pursue? If you audited my life and had to assess that which is most important to me, what would you find? Am I pursuing God or am I pursuing my own desires? The insatiable appetite of our flesh wants to constantly feed its own desires and money is one of its most seductive cravings. It is easy to see how the love of money leads to senseless and harmful behavior in others. The challenge is for me to see how my own desires bring ruin and destruction in my life.
Any pursuit that we put above God leads to destruction. Money of course, is so tempting as it has the appearance of success. This is the illusion of financial gain. We can fool ourselves into thinking that we are not chasing ruin because we are successful in the eyes of the world. Paul however insists that we are breeding spiritual corruption in our own lives when we pursue anything above God. Money itself is not the problem. It is our elevation of it above God that breeds ruin.