A GOD-LIVED LIFE: Let your money be good for something.

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

          We are wrapping up a series of sermons with a Stewardship emphasis. Stewardship, ultimately, is about our entire life. We use what God gives us to his glory and for the good of our neighbor. For one more month, we will consider the way we use the gifts God gives us as is God-pleasing.

         This email is to further encourage what we pondered on Sunday, January 9. (That service can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fjo1iuJ-pSw&t=1s)  In this way, each one can give more consideration about how he or she may put into practice what was proclaimed as a God-pleasing way to serve him.
          For the month of January, we continue to consider what it means to have A Life Shrewdly Lived.

A LIFE SHREWDLY LIVED

Week #3      Let your money be good for something.

            “Every good act of giving and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the lights” (James 1:17).  Every good gift is from God, and every gift God gives is good.  This includes our wealth.  Money is not the root of all evil; rather, “the love of money is a root of all sorts of evils” (1 Timothy 6:9, emphasis added).  Money, in and of itself, is a tool.  We use it to accomplish what we need to do.

            If money is a tool, it is to be put to good use.  Some uses are obvious.  St. Paul wrote, “If anyone does not provide for his own family, and especially for his own household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever” (1 Timothy 5:8).  Caring for one’s own family and assuring the family has what they need is obvious even to scoundrels.  We put our money to good use by caring for the family God gives us.

            But if this is as far as your use of money goes, it is not doing as much good as God desires.  God intends us to use the tools he gives us to honor him and to serve our neighbor.  In regard to serving our neighbor, this is what the word of the Lord says: “Let the one who has been stealing steal no longer.  Instead, let him work hard doing what is good with his own hands, so that he has something to share with a person who is in need” (Ephesians 4:28).  We bring harm to our neighbor of we steal from him.  But God urges us to go further than to do no harm.  He tells us to do good, especially to the one who is in need.  We make our money good for something when we aid and assist those who are in need.

            Our money is also used to honor the Lord.  While all godly use of money honors God, the offerings we give are a specific act of worship to honor him.  In the Old Testament, the offerings were animals which were slain and then consumed by fire on an altar.  This sacrifice was a complete devotion.  In a worldly sense, it was a total waste.  There was no return on a ram burnt to ashes.  Of course, we do not light our offerings on fire after we devote them to the Lord.  Our money is good for the work of preaching the Gospel, of sending missionaries throughout the world, of supporting the training of future pastors and teachers, of publication of literature which faithfully teaches the Scriptures, and so on.  Our prayer is that the return on our offerings will be the eternal welfare of people whom we don’t even know and of people who are not yet even born.  That is good for something.

            Whatever we do, we want to do it to the glory of God and the good of our neighbor.  Whatever God has given us is given for that purpose, including our wealth.  It is a good gift of God, and it is to be used for something good.