Ecclesiastes 5:10 “He
who loves money will not be
satisfied with money, nor he who
loves abundance with its income. This too is vanity.”
What are true riches? Pastor JJ, continuing his “Who owns you?
Sermon series told us that a clue is found in the fact that Jesus has whatever
power he wanted at His disposal. How did He use them? To help others. What
makes you truly rich in life? To most, the answer is money and lots of it. But
there is an uneasiness that comes from the pursuit of money. How many would
say, “Give me that problem.”?
1 Timothy 6:9-11 Those who want to get rich fall into
temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge
people into ruin and destruction. For the love of
money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for
money, have wandered from the faith and pierced
themselves with many griefs. But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue
righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness.
Pastor gave us three questions about money to wrestle with.
(1) How did you obtain the money? Honestly or by cheating,
justly or unjustly in the eyes of God? Because we all have to give an account
of how we acquire our “Greenbacks” and ill-gotten gain and the exploitation of others are a curse; not a blessing. The Christian cannot ignore this question, or else
we’ll lose our godly influence in society.
(2)
What is the money doing to you?, including “how is it affecting your
relationship with God?” In Mark 10:21-22 Jesus, looking at
the rich young Ruler, loved him, and said to him, “One
thing you lack: Go your way, sell whatever you have and give to the poor, and
you will have treasure in heaven; and come, take up the cross, and follow Me.” But he was sad at this word, and went away sorrowful, for
he had great possessions. His heart was
not in following the Lord, because his riches were more important than Jesus. The
first conversion starts in our minds, and the second conversion is in our
hearts. But the third conversion takes place in our money. God requires us to
offer our life as a “living” sacrifice; not just giving words to the Lord.
Jesus is not a decal on our car; the Lord wants to metaphorically “drive our
car”, meaning “rule our life”.
(3) What are you doing with your
finances? Rather than to be generous and compassionate, seeing the needs of the
people and acting upon them as Jesus did and desires us to also, instead of
having the ways of the world as our drive. Not justifying our niggardly heart
by saying: “If I can get it, than they can too”, instead of driving God’s
purposes. Jesus say in Matthew
25:44-46 “Then they also will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger
or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?’ Then He will answer them, saying, ‘Assuredly, I say to you,
inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’ And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the
righteous into eternal life.” So one’s who are truly saved are
generous in heart and life, responding to the generosity of God’s grace towards
them. What
did salvation do to you? How has your relationship with Christ changed your view of living? The egocentric secular world around us advocates that
life is about the collecting and accumulation of wealth. Did you know that if
you live in America
Hebrews
13:5 Keep your
lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God
has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”
Do not be
motivated by “Lord Dollar”, but be motivated by “Lord Jesus” and use your money
to do the purposes of God. Luke 16:13 tells us: “No servant
can serve two masters.” What’s more important to us? The heart’s answer is revealed
by our thoughts, words and actions daily. As in Matthew 25:21 is the Lord going to say to you and I, ‘Well done, good and faithful
servant; you were faithful over (the
handling of your money.)? Child of God,
what is the level of generosity that you and I are being called to, in a world
that accumulates riches? Know what true riches are and where they lie. This is
our challenge: Christian, use money wisely; don’t let our money use us. Amen? Amen.
In
Christ, Brian
3 comments:
Hi Brian,
I have enjoyed this post and the last post you're wrote on money.
There is a man in my church who told me how his whole life he gave 10% of everything he made to the Lord. He told me a story of how he always gave the first 10% to the Lord and then took the rest to pay the bills and the supplies he needed to survive, all the time except one time. One day he was really tight for money and chose to pay his bills first and then give the Lord 10%. He said that was the only time ever that he didn't have enough money to make ends meet. He learned his lesson very quickly for the next time he had some money in his hand, he set aside the first 10% for the Lord and then paid off his bills. Once he got the priority right, he was never short and always had enough.
It can be a very scary to fully rely on the Lord, but it is the only sured thing in life.
Blessings brother,
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"The only sure thing in life" sound like a great title for a Blog. God is our surety! At our church, we've been discussing the "First Fruits" giving (from Genesis 4:4). I know that the giving of our money is a "touchy" subject, but why is the Word of God ever touchy to us? We are not sinners because we sin. We sin because we are sinners by nature. We lose sight that its all belongs to God in the first place. God doesn't need money; we need to give back to God for our sake, by walking in the Spirit and not gratify the desires of the sinful nature of greed. It's a battle, but the enemy has been identified. Let's keep our focus on Jesus! Great point Child of God. Thank you for the cool story and the comments. Blessings sister.
Jaxson, I'm glad that you enjoyed the topic and commented. It's good that there is a forum that has liberty and freedom to discuss topics that are normally avoided, but without discussion, all the input for reasoning of the subject is not put out "on the table" to analyze and question for truth, so that we can come to an informed decision and eliminate the fear of the unknown by our understanding and knowledge ... using the Word of God as our guide and standard. Thank you so much for coming by.
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