Zakias and Judas have quite a bit of parallels, but yet they win about their pursuit of money

differently.

Zakias left God's family.

He left God's will to pursue money, to pursue wealth, to pursue creaturely comforts, right?

He's the sinner who ended up in the pigstie.

But Judas, he stayed close to the church.

He stayed close to Jesus.

From the outside, he was a whitewash tomb.

He was a moralist.

He was doing all the right things.

He was following Christ, yet Zakias and Judas both were doing something.

One of them was running from God and one of them was staying close to God.

But Judas was staying close to God as it turns out for the same reasons Zakias was running

from God, for his own wealth, for his own comfort.

And so often in our lives, we can do the same thing.

Some of us run far away from God because we want to pursue our own way, our own life.

And some of us, we go to church every Sunday and we play the part of the legalists and

the moralists.

We do all the right things.

We say all the right things, but we do it because we want control over our lives because

we want the wealth, because we want the comfort.

And the difference here is to be a Christian is to pursue God for who God is, not because

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