Financial Principles of the Bible Part 9: Trust in God, not Money (part 2)

Transcription

1 Financial Principles of the Bible Part 9: Trust in God, not Money (part 2) BRAD ETTORE AGATHOS CHURCH APRIL 4TH, 2016 Full Text (for reading on your own) God s Perspective About Money Does it ever strike you when you are looking at your paycheck to consider how God feels about it? Do you not want to know God s perspective about money? What God s opinion about money? In the Western Hemisphere we tend to associate wealth with worldliness more so than Godliness. By contrast, we tend to assume more Godliness in someone in poverty - especially if they are serving the Lord. We think wow, now they are spiritual people But is that accurate? Is there any connection between their lack of money and their spirituality? Any connection in God s mind between the two? The answer is NO! There is zero connection whatsoever in God s mind between being poor and being more spiritual. Let us understand God s perspective about money! In order to understand God s perspective about money we are going to need to be spiritually minded and not carnally minded. Romans 8:5-6 says For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Being carnally minded brings death. It brings death into whatever area you are being carnally minded about. By contrast, being spiritually minded brings life and peace! Being spiritually minded is the same as being Wordminded. They are interchangeable terms. Our Lord said The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life. (Jn. 6:63) John 1:1 says In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Jesus is the Word and the words He spoke to us are spirit, so to be spiritually minded is to be Word-minded! Continuing on in Romans 8 to the next verse (verse 7): Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. Why is the carnal mind against God? Because it is not subject to His law - to His word! Yeah, I know that s what the Bible says, but. That phrase is surefire evidence of a carnal mind! It doesn t say the Bible says it - end of discussion. I don t even care if I don t understand it; it s still true. I m not God, He is! To be spiritually minded is to be word-minded. The Issue is Trust So, here is the Biblical view about money in one statement. And if you don t like this statement, I would challenge you to think about one verse of scripture that says otherwise. Here s the statement: Money isn t the issue; trust is. Or said differently: Money isn t the issue; the issue is trust. The key is to answer the question where is out trust?!? I was once invited to participate in a leadership - 1 -

2 meeting (at a church) where someone boldly said in front of all present I don t believe a man of God can drive an expensive car! It was clear to everyone present that they were referring to my expensive car and to me! I was not offended at all, but I was very intrigued by the lack of understanding my sister in Christ had about our Father s perspective about money. She had been walking with the Lord for years by she was still destitute of the knowledge of God s view about money. Most people still think that way - even in the body of Christ. It is my hope that this message will help you break free of that understanding. Can a Christian be very wealthy and very un-godly? Absolutely! Could a Christian be very wealthy and be very Godly? Absolutely! Why the dichotomy? Because money isn t the issue!!! Can you think of a scripture or story that tells us that God is opposed to us having wealth? There will be probably be a few that come to mind - but let s look at one of them that probably makes your list, the story of the rich young ruler in Mark 10! We ll pick up in Mark 10:17: Now as He was going out on the road, one came running, knelt before Him, and asked Him, Good Teacher, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life? Please note, this man seems to have had a great heart. His body posture says it. He knelt before Jesus. Additionally, he was a very wealthy man, yet he ran down the street to catch Jesus in front of a crowd of people. Think about it, that is not something that the wealthy and famous often do - run after others. They tend to let others run after them. So this man s heart was soft to the Lord in this moment for sure. And as we see in verse 21 that Jesus loved him. To start Jesus answered his question about how to inherit enteral life by telling him to obey all the commandments. The young man says Teacher, all these things I have kept from my youth. Jesus tells him that he lacks one thing: 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. (verse 21) Do you know that the Lord only said come and follow me to 11 other people? Nevertheless, at that moment, the rich young ruler was sad at this word, and went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. At this point in the story, Jesus turns to His disciples for a teaching moment. How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God! Look at the disciples response - they are shocked! But Jesus answered them again and said Children, how hard it is for those who trust in riches to enter the kingdom of God! (verse 24) Do you see it? Trust is the issue! Money is never the issue. When you study the scripture, you look for the hinge. Look at the entryway of a mansion and you will see that the massive door swings on it s hinge. Without the hinge, the door is useless. When you study scripture, you need to find the hinge that a particular scripture swings on. Hunt for the hinge in scripture. That hinge is the key to the a whole parable or story from scripture unfolding or opening up for you. The hinge will open the door to the truth (the revelation) that is in that scripture. In Mark 10, in the story of the rich young ruler, the word trust in verse 24 is the hinge. The difficulty is not in having money, but in trusting in money! - 2 -

3 We see in verse 26 that Jesus disciples were astonished at this teaching: And they were greatly astonished, saying among themselves, Who then can be saved? Jesus disciples (Jewish men) were so astonished by His saying because they had grown up in a very prosperous Jewish culture. But Jesus said, With men it is impossible, but not with God; for with God all things are possible. In other words, it takes God in the heart of a man to break the stronghold of mammon. Peter, seemingly breathing a sigh of relief says See, we have left all and followed You. Jesus answered and said Assuredly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for My sake and the gospel s, who shall not receive a hundredfold now in this time houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions and in the age to come, eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first. (verses 28-31) So, what was Jesus about to do for this very wealthy man when He told him give it all away? He was going to give it all back to him 100 fold! The problem was that the man thought that he had wealth but the reality was that the wealth had him! Jesus recognized that and was trying to set the man free. If the man had obeyed Jesus, the Lord would have brought the wealth back to him which would have made it clear to him who his source was; he would have know God is his source. That is what Jesus was after. If you can think of other scriptures that seem to be opposed to wealth, do the same thing. Go to them. Read them in context. You will see money is never the issue. Money is not the root of all evil. The love of money is the root of all evil. (1 Tim. 6:10) I would venture to say that rich people are not more covetous of money than poor people. It s the poor that tend to believe that money is the answer to all of their problems. What are they doing? They re coveting! Just because you don t have it, doesn t mean that you don t covet. So don t mix that two. Money is not the issue. Trust is the issue. Where is your trust? Who is your source? In other words, what is, or who is, your source? Is your source money or is your source God? Even many born again, bible-wagging, tongue-talking, pew-jumping Christians see money as their source. Do you know how you can find that out? Have their job get pulled out from underneath them and see where they go emotionally. If God is truly your source, you could lose your job today with no emotional or psychological repercussions. You won t skip a beat. I m interested to see what God s going to do now! Why doesn t it touch you emotionally? Because you are standing on God as your Rock! The job can shake, move, or even disappear, but you re still standing on the Rock! By contrast, if you are standing on your career, intelligence, ability, and/or bank account as your source then you will falter emotionally if they falter. When you lose something, it tells you where your heart is. If you re thinking has been completely renewed to God alone is my source then any loses in those areas will NOT even touch you. And not only that, they will be restored to you very quickly because you are walking in faith - you are in the position that God needs you to be in so that He can bless you

4 The fall of man is the reason we struggle so much with this. Previous to their fall, do you think Adam and Eve had any worry going on in their mind as they strolled trough the Garden of Eden? The answer is worry never even entered their cranial cavity! They were good - they were just enjoying life. There was no question in their mind that the Lord was taking care of them and they could just enjoy life. It was only when the deceiver came in and sin entered in that fear, shame, and worry came in. All of these negative experiences were introduced by the fall of man. Since the fall of man, there has been a barrier of fear between man and God. God has given us His Word and His Spirit to break through that barrier of fear and reconnect and recognize that God is our source and He has us! He is so capable that He can take anything that happens in our lives and turn it around and make it actually work out for our good! He is the ultimate at turning lemons into lemonade! We toss God a tomato and He sends back a nice pasta sauce; He can take any situation we throw at Him and turn it for our good! Anything! For instance, you could, as many people around the world have experienced, live in a country where the government stole all the money in your bank account. If you are walking in this mindset in trusting in God not riches, you will turn to Proverbs 6:31 Yet when he is found, he must restore sevenfold and you will say I just recognized and identified a their and therefore claim a 7-fold return on that account! I once had my car stolen. It was a surreal moment to walk out to where I had parked it and not find my car there. It was Sunday morning so I immediately thought about who lived close who could give me a ride to church. Then I started thinking about Proverbs 6:31 and wondered with excitement what kind of car am I going to get next?!? This is going to be nice! I literally started celebrating and I ended up getting totally blessed out of that situation! Changing our Perspective We live out of a belief system. You can hear a great message, but if you don t do anything more about taking that message and really studying it out and meditating on it, unfortunately it really will not change anything in your life. Why? Because we function out of a belief system that is deep within our heart. That is what we act out of. To change a belief system that is deep in your heart, you have to work on it and meditate on it. We live in a world that speaks the opposite of the Word. We are swimming upstream. The world says it s all about your education, it s all about your job. The world says you have to make all you can, can all you get, and then sit on your can. But God says, I want you to trust me and when you make money I want you to give some of it away. First give me the first 10% and the rest of it I want you to give some of that away and then trust me for your provision. So God says give and it will be given back to you. It takes time meditating in that word in order to really come to the place of believing it so that you will act out of that belief. But there is only way to change your belief system and that s to get into the Word of God. You can think you are good. You can think you are right in line with God. You can think you are right in-step with God but all the time your heart is deceived and you don t even know it

5 James 1:22-25 says: But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does. Right now, as you read this, you are a hearer only. It is only if you take this word, spend time in it, meditate on it, and then begin to act on it that you become a doer of the word. Verse 26 goes on to say If anyone among you thinks he is religious, and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, There we see it - you can have a deceived heart. You can think you re good, but you re not. So how can you know if you are good? One way to check you heart is to read the Word - take the light of God s Word and read it to shine the light of it on your heart and see how you respond to it. Another way to see where your heart is actually at is to stop when you get to a comment in scripture like you cannot serve both God and mammon. Instead of glossing over that, simply stop and consider. Think about it. Do I serve mammon? What s it mean to serve? And you start to think well to serve means to be obedient to or to be subject to. Then ask yourself is money my boss in any way? Then you think am I listening to it? Is it making me do things? Think back through your decisions and thoughts and see! Another way we can see where our heart is at is by considering hypothetical scenarios (which are a far-better way to learn than actually living them out!) You can experience things through mediation and find out where you are at and adjust ahead of time. For instance, if you were married, won the lottery ($400 million), and then your spouse then cheated on you. You have to ask yourself what good is my money now? Can you buy back the purity of your marriage with large sums of money? Can you buy back the loyalty of your spouse? Can all the money in the world prevent the damage that this will create in my children s hearts? This is a painful story to mediate on even in a hypothetical sense, but it can help us play out the real power and real limitations of money. $400 million would answer so many needs, but there are other things it could never buy back. Thinking this through helps our heart clarify it s perspective on money. Significance Money is a liar. It is on every commercial. It is the fancy cars, nicer houses, and wealthier friend. All of it says if you only had me, you would be happier. If you only had more of me, you would have significance. You don t have significance because you don t have me. Money is a liar straight from hell! Jesus personified it. You cannot serve mammon and God. Choose who you are going to serve! Significance - what a joke. Money doesn t give you significance. You can have all the money in the world and it will not produce significance. We all want significance. Not even in terms of how we look to others, but just in terms of HAVING SIGNIFICANCE - that your life has meaning! We all want that sort of significance. But there is only ONE PLACE that TRUE significance comes - 5 -

6 from - it s from service. All the money from the lottery will make you feel significant for a short period of time, but after a while you know that you are no different. Others may think that you are different because of your newfound wealth but you know that you are really just you. Deep in your heart you know that you are really not significant. It was a false sense of significance so it really doesn t last. Having money will not in and of itself make your significant. Likewise, relationships will not give you significance. Money will only allow you to have significance if you do something with that money that helps others! Likewise, the only way a relationship will give you significance is if you serve the person you are in relationship with! If a spouse beats their spouse into submission and totally controls them (the opposite of serving them) they may be in total control but they will feel no significance! That person will feel like the dirtbag that they are. Fame doesn t bring significance. Fortune doesn t bring significance. There is only one way to get significance - to serve! To feel significant, you have to actually do something significant! Newsflash! That s where significance comes from. You feel significant when you are significant! Personally, I just went on a trip to Columbia. The highlight? Leading 3 separate people to the Lord! The sights, the people, the food, the exchange rate, the weather - all of it was fantastic. But all of that is in the shadows of my memory compared to the significance of leading 3 people to Jesus! I feel significant! You know why? Because I am! That is not said in the stupidity of pride. I simply know without any question that I am significant in the minds of 3 people in Columbia right now! In fact, out of the thousands of people I ve met and forgotten over the years, one person I still know is Sheila Lewis! 33 years and I have never forgotten about Sheila Lewis! She is the person who led me to the Lord. She is so significant to me. Why? She served me in the most beautiful way - she led me to Jesus! Significance comes through service - through doing something. You can have all the money in the world and be depressed and miserable. The wealthiest of the wealthy find significance in giving money away to help others. You find significance in doing something for other people. Inside of service is purpose and inside of purpose is significance. If you want significance, you have to serve. Service will give you purpose and purpose will give you significance. That s where it s at! You can t find significance anywhere else. It s not in fortune, it s not in fame. It s in service. The bottom line is this: God wants to know who do you trust for your provision? Is it Me? Or is it your job, your intelligence, your talents? What are you leaning on? People might say Lord, look at this guy, he has all this money. The Lord would say I don t care if he s got all this money, who s he trusting? Is it Me? If he s trusting Me, he can have all the cars that he wants - I like it in fact! Ps. 35:27 Let the Lord be magnified, Who has pleasure in the prosperity of His servant. It gives your Father pleasure that you would prosper! He just wants you to do it His way so that you will not get pierced through with sorrow. The world has ways that you can get wealthy - but the bible tells us that if you do it that way you will be pierced through with sorrow. It doesn t even mean that you won t ever be happy, but you will be laden with stress, damaged relationships, etc. The worlds way to wealth pierces us through with sorrow. God says my way is pure. It s perfect. When you get to the top God s way you will look back and all you are going to see is people you ve blessed, blessed, blessed, blessed, blessed, blessed, blessed! You will have significance, joy, and peace. His - 6 -

7 path is perfect. It s pure, it s right, it s good. Follow it! God says the money s not the issue. It s how you get there. Where s your faith / where s your trust? Stewardship Now, for the second issue. The first one was where s your trust? The second issue is when God blesses you with money, what do you do with it? The second issue is about your faithfulness - your stewardship. Imagine a mother baked 20 cookies, giving 10 to her son and 10 to her daughter. She simply request I am going to let them cool down on the stove, you can each have 10. I just ask that you leave one for me and the rest you can do with as you please. The son checks back in on the cookies a bit later and finds that they have cooled sufficiently. He sees one of his 10 cookies is broken so he sets that one aside for Mom. He takes the rest and consumes them. The girl goes and finds the biggest and best cookie to give to her mom! Then she notices that her brother s plate is empty and she takes 2 of her cookies and puts it on his plate. Then she takes 4 of them, puts them on a plate and runs them down the street to her best friends. That leaves her with 3 cookies which she sits down to eat and loves them! A couple days later, their mom decides that she is going to bake 30 cookies today. How do you suppose their mom is going to distribute these cookies? Now, did the boy disobey the mom? No. He did exactly what she said. Leave one for me and the rest you can do with as you please. He did that. Mom is going to bake 10 for him again. But she is going to give 20 to her daughter! You may think that s not fair! Well this story is directly out of the bible. Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. God will give you more and more as long as we prove to be good stewards with what He has given us. The Bible says Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again. (Luke 6:38, KJV) Notice that it is men that will pour it into your bosom. Why? Because God doesn t just bring money down from Heaven; God doesn t counterfeit money in Heaven. But He will move on men (mankind) to bring money to you. He will move on mankind to bring more and more and more to you. The First Steps If you find yourself struggling with all of this if you find yourself thinking I believe this, but I struggle with it. First of all, welcome to the human race. Secondly, here are a couple of things to help you trust God with money. 1. Assuming you are a tither, pray and ask God to help you trust Him. Be honest with Him. 2. Think about your tithing, think about how long you ve been tithing and what has happened in your life. See what God has already done in your life and let that begin to build up your faith. If you have been tithing for at least 6 months or more, you will be able to look back over your time tithing and see the hand of God. Let that help you

8 3. Find scriptures on giving and mediate on them and let the Word do it s own work. Get the word into you. Read those scriptures over and over. And what you will find is that it is the same message give and it will be given unto you. The generous soul shall be made rich, and he who waters will also be watered himself. (Prov. 11:25) 4. When you find yourself getting excited, when you get to the point you can actually give cheerfully, then give! This way you will actually be giving in faith and some cheerfulness. Even if you have a little trepidation in the process, it s OK. Just give and keep doing it. Ask God show me places to give. Speak to my heart. Where can I give? And start to give! And like Ecclesiastes 11:1 says Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days. It will start coming back to you. Pretty soon you will see that you have given away more money than ever and that you have more money than ever before! You will find your faith and your trust starting to build in God. 5. Remember that finances is not the big thing. It is actually the training wheels that God uses to teach His children to trust in Him. The tithe is the first rung on the latter. Giving is the second rung on the latter, but God has so much more for His children! But He uses money to teach us. One to break the stronghold of mammon off of us. And secondly, to build trust in us. When you start giving and you start seeing God move in your finances, it speaks to you the reality of God. God is moving in my life! You start to see God s hand. Therefore if you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches? (Luke 16:11) God has stuff for us that is far better than money! Money is just the training ground. That s where you start. You start to see the power of God, the hand of God, and you start believing God. And after a while you can rock and roll with God in the area of finances. And you can start to become a hilarious giver - which God loves! And what happens? And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work. (2 Cor. 9:8) As you grow into faith in finances there will be some other things God wants you to move in to now that you are realizing how He is active in your life! I want to use in the gifts and the power of the ages to come: like healing the sick and casting out devils and raising the dead. These are the true riches. Money is elementary. But it is wonderful and it s available and it s there for us. God has it for us. Amen. May our thinking be aligned with Heaven! May this message be sealed in our hearts. That it would grow in us and produce a 100-fold return in us

9 Text Summary (for reading as a group) What God s opinion about money? In the Western Hemisphere we tend to associate wealth with worldliness more so than Godliness. But is that accurate? The answer is NO! There is zero connection whatsoever in God s mind between being poor and being more spiritual. Let us understand God s perspective about money! In order to understand God s perspective about money we are going to need to be spiritually minded and not carnally minded. Being carnally minded brings death. The carnal mind is against God, because it is not subject to His word. Yeah, I know that s what the Bible says, but. That phrase is surefire evidence of a carnal mind! It doesn t say the Bible says it - end of discussion. I don t even care if I don t understand it; it s still true. I m not God, He is! To be spiritually minded is to be word-minded. So, here is the Biblical view about money in one statement: Money isn t the issue; trust is. Where is out trust?!? Can a Christian be very wealthy and very un-godly? Absolutely! Could a Christian be very wealthy and be very Godly? Absolutely! Why the dichotomy? Because money isn t the issue!!! Jesus turned an exchange He had with the rich young ruler in Mark 10 into a teaching moment for His disciples. How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God! Look at the disciples response - they are shocked! But Jesus answered them again and said Children, how hard it is for those who trust in riches to enter the kingdom of God! (verse 24) Do you see it? Trust is the issue! Money is never the issue. When you study the scripture, you look for the hinge. Without a hinge, a door is useless. When you study scripture, you need to find the hinge that a particular scripture swings on. Hunt for the hinge in scripture. That hinge is the key to the a whole parable or story from scripture unfolding or opening up for you. The hinge will open the door to the truth (the revelation) that is in that scripture. In Mark 10, in the story of the rich young ruler, the word trust in verse 24 is the hinge. The difficulty is not in having money, but in trusting in money! In fact, we see later in Mark 10 what Jesus was about to do for this very wealthy man when He told him give it all away? He was going to give it all back to him 100 fold! The problem was that the man thought that he had wealth but the reality was that the wealth had him! Jesus recognized that and was trying to set the man free. If the man had obeyed Jesus, the Lord would have brought the wealth back to him which would have made it clear to him who his source was; he would have know God is his source. That is what Jesus was after. If you can think of other scriptures that seem to be opposed to wealth, do the same thing. Go to them. Read them in context. You will see money is never the issue. Money is not the root of all evil. The love of money is the root of all evil. (1 Tim. 6:10) In other words, what is, or who is, your source? Is your source money or is your source God? Do you know how you can find that out? Have a job get pulled out from underneath us and see where we go emotionally. If God is truly our source, we could lose a job today with no emotional or - 9 -

10 psychological repercussions. You won t skip a beat. I m interested to see what God s going to do now! Why doesn t it touch you emotionally? Because you are standing on God as your Rock! The job can shake, move, or even disappear, but you re still standing on the Rock! By contrast, if you are standing on your career, intelligence, ability, and/or bank account as your source then you will falter emotionally if they falter. The fall of man is the reason we struggle so much with this. Prior to the fall, there was no question in Adam and Eve s minds that the Lord was taking care of them and they could just enjoy life. It was only when the deceiver came in and sin entered in that fear, shame, and worry came in. All of these negative experiences were introduced by the fall of man. Since the fall of man, there has been a barrier of fear between man and God. God has given us His Word and His Spirit to break through that barrier of fear and reconnect and recognize that God is our source and He has us! He is so capable that He can take anything that happens in our lives and turn it around and make it actually work out for our good! He is the ultimate at turning lemons into lemonade! He can take any situation we throw at Him and turn it for our good! We live out of a belief system. You can hear a great message, but if you don t do anything more about taking that message and really studying it out and meditating on it, unfortunately it really will not change anything in your life. To change a belief system that is deep in your heart, you have to work on it and meditate on it. The world says you have to make all you can, can all you get, and then sit on your can. But God says, I want you to trust me and when you make money I want you to give some of it away. First give me the first 10% and the rest of it I want you to give some of that away and then trust me for your provision. So God says give and it will be given back to you. It takes time meditating in that word in order to really come to the place of believing it so that you will act out of that belief. But there is only way to change your belief system and that s to get into the Word of God. You can think you are good. You can think you are right in line with God. You can think you are right in-step with God but all the time your heart is deceived and you don t even know it. One way to check you heart is to read the Word - take the light of God s Word and read it to shine the light of it on your heart and see how you respond to it. Another way to see where your heart is actually at is to stop when you get to a comment in scripture like you cannot serve both God and mammon. Instead of glossing over that, simply stop and truly consider and think about it. Another way we can see where our heart is at is by considering hypothetical scenarios (which are a far-better way to learn than actually living them out!) You can experience things through mediation and find out where you are at and adjust ahead of time. Money is a liar. It is on every commercial. It is the fancy cars, nicer houses, and wealthier friend. All of it says if you only had me, you would be happier. If you only had more of me, you would have significance. You don t have significance because you don t have me. Money is a liar straight from hell! Jesus personified it. You cannot serve mammon and God. Money doesn t give you significance. There is only ONE PLACE that TRUE significance comes from - it s from service. Having money will not in and of itself make your significant. Likewise, relationships will not give you significance. Money will only allow you to have significance if you do something with that money that helps others! Likewise, the only way a relationship will give you significance is if you

11 serve the person you are in relationship with! Fame doesn t bring significance. Fortune doesn t bring significance. There is only one way to get significance - to serve! To feel significant, you have to actually do something significant! Newsflash! That s where significance comes from. You feel significant when you are significant! Now, for the second issue. The first one was where s your trust? The second issue is when God blesses you with money, what do you do with it? The second issue is about your faithfulness - your stewardship. Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. God will give you more and more as long as we prove to be good stewards with what He has given us. The Bible says Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again. (Luke 6:38, KJV) Notice that it is men that will pour it into your bosom. Why? Because God doesn t just bring money down from Heaven; God doesn t counterfeit money in Heaven. But He will move on men (mankind) to bring money to you. He will move on mankind to bring more and more and more to you. If you find yourself struggling with all of this if you find yourself thinking I believe this, but I struggle with it. First of all, welcome to the human race. Secondly, here are a couple of things to help you trust God with money. 1. Assuming you are a tither, pray and ask God to help you trust Him. Be honest with Him. 2. Think about your tithing, think about how long you ve been tithing and see what God has already done in your life and let that begin to build up your faith. 3. Find scriptures on giving and mediate on them and let the Word do it s own work. Read those scriptures over and over. 4. When you find yourself getting excited, when you get to the point you can actually give cheerfully, then give! Even if you have a little trepidation in the process, it s OK. Just give and keep doing it. Ask God show me places to give. Speak to my heart. Where can I give? And start to give! And like Ecclesiastes 11:1 says Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days. It will start coming back to you. 5. Remember that finances is not the big thing. It is actually the training wheels that God uses to teach His children to trust in Him. The tithe is the first rung on the latter. Giving is the second rung on the latter, but God has so much more for His children! But He uses money to teach us. God has stuff for us that is far better than money! Money is just the training ground. That s where you start. As you grow into faith in finances there will be some other things God wants you to move in to now that you are realizing how He is active in your life! I want to use in the gifts and the power of the ages to come: like healing the sick and casting out devils and raising the dead. These are the true riches. Money is elementary. But it is wonderful and it s available and it s there for us. God has it for us. May our thinking be aligned with Heaven! Amen!

12 Points to Ponder... What scriptures make it clear that money s not the issue? What are some ways we can tell who our source is (in our hearts / in our thinking)? Where does true significance come from and how is that different than what we may have heard or thought before? What does the parable of the talents in Matthew 25 show us about stewardship? What are some steps we can take to begin stepping more into the financial principles of the bible?