God’s Money – Part 3 of 3

The Word of God speaks over and over again about money matters. He knows that we have practical needs. There have been many times in my married life when my husband and I needed to see God come through financially and materially. Our first few years of marriage were especially challenging. I remember a couple of times that I fasted when the money ran out, asking God literally for milk money.

Our giving to the Lord was more haphazard in those days. Sometimes we gave generously, but often we gave below the tithe. When it came to money, we didn’t always seek His Kingdom first. We figured God didn’t want us to go without and we needed the money more than He did. However, we learnt that the tithe helps us consistently to seek His Kingdom first with our money and to trust Him to provide our needs. The tithe is only the foundation for giving. There are also other ways to give.

One day, God convicted me about this through the story of the widow in the Bible who gave her last penny (Mark 12:41-44). Why did she give her last penny? She knew God would take care of her. As I was pondering this, I sat convicted, but at that point I had no money to give. I just didn’t have eyes to see past my own predicament. That’s when I felt God prompting me to look at what I did have instead of what I didn’t have. The only things I could think of that God might be able to use were the baby clothes. By now I had already had two children, a boy and a girl, so there was plenty. In obedience, I packed baby clothes, baby accessories, plus maternity wear. Then, my husband and I drove to the nearest crisis pregnancy center, which was in another town, and blessed them with the things.

Sometimes giving to God or others is not going to be easy. Sometimes it’s going to require faith and sacrifice. When we were struggling because we didn’t have enough money, we realized that we weren’t giving to God what was His. The best decision we’ve ever made was to make tithing a lifestyle, not an option.

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God’s Money – Part 2 of 3

Luxembourg Christmas Market
Photo by Debbie Shiel

Perhaps you’ve heard people say that to be godly you have to be poor and miserable. Some Christians depict Jesus as a weak, blond-haired, blue-eyed man who lived a deprived life. First of all, Jesus was a Jew from the Middle East, so He would have had dark hair and dark eyes with an olive complexion. And yes, He was born in a stable, but only because there was no room in the inn. Joseph could have paid for something better, but Father God allowed the Son of God to be placed in a manger instead. This was His birth place, but it wasn’t His home.

Sometime later, wise men brought Him some very expensive gifts. Was this the same Jesus who was born in a stable and had a manger for a bed? Did He need such costly gifts? Didn’t someone in church once say that God provides only our needs? Is poverty really true godliness?

Certainly, Jesus didn’t live a life of luxury. He knew what it felt like to work hard to earn a living. He also knew what it was like to be in full-time ministry without a fixed income, but His regular provisions were not meager. There were some women of good standing who were noted for their financial support. Even the disciples had money in the general purse. We know this because Judas was said to have stolen from it.

Many of the dialogues with Jesus took place at meal times where He was the guest of honor. When the crowds were hungry, on two occasions, Jesus demonstrated compassion by performing the miracle of the multiplication of food. Not only did they eat their fill, but there was some left over as well.

When we read about Jesus’ crucifixion, we find out that He wore a special garment. As the story goes, the guards divided up His clothes among themselves. When they saw His cloak, they realized it was valuable as it was seamless, so they chose to gamble for it. Does this sound like a Messiah who walked around in poor men’s clothes?

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God’s Money – Part 1 of 3

People say money makes the world go round. Money does make things happen. It can even gain a person power and influence. But, many wrongly place their faith in it.

Others say that money is the root of all evil. They are referring to a verse from the Bible which really states that the love of money is the root of all evil (1Tim. 6:10). Money in itself does not bring evil, but loving it does. When we love our money, we allow it to consume our thoughts. Then, it begins to control us. Soon we find our energies are spent on the pursuit of it, or we fear not having enough, so we hoard it. This is abusing what God has entrusted to us.

There’s no freedom in loving money. In this frame of mind, you can never have enough to satisfy. Circumstances can change dramatically overnight. Today you may be a millionaire, and find out tomorrow you’re a pauper. Imagine yourself back in history to America’s Great Depression. One day you have loads of money saved in the bank, but when fear grips the masses and everyone wants to be paid out at once, there’s nothing left for you. Look, if God can hold creation together, then wouldn’t the world’s economy also be under His control?

If you find it difficult to put your trust in God’s Word, then perhaps you’re thinking that His Word is not relevant to the 21st Century. God is the Great I Am. He was and He is and He is to come. He is not archaic. He’s not out of touch with the latest trends or technology. He certainly understands the economy better than we do. He’s not far removed from our humanity. Jesus, God himself, walked this earth and experienced day-to-day life, just like us. He knows how we feel.

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The Oil – Part 3 of 3

Practically, the oil was a form of provision. During one particular famine, the Lord told the prophet Elijah to visit a certain widow (1Kings 17:8-16). This widow believed that she and her son would not survive the famine. All they had left was a little bit of oil and flour. In spite of her hopeless situation, Elijah told her to give him something to eat. She calculated that this would be the last of their provision, but still she fulfilled his request. Amazingly, that little bit of oil and flour did not run out until the famine ended. Through her obedience, God miraculously sustained all three of them on those two ingredients alone. We are able to know for certain that the Holy Spirit has been given by God as our provision for life.

The oil represents not only provision, but also abundance. We read about this in the story concerning a prophet’s widow (2Kings 4:1-7). She had debt collectors wanting to sell her sons into slavery to pay off her family debt. This time Elisha was on the scene. Elisha was the prophet that succeeded Elijah. Elisha asked the widow what she had in her house. Her answer was that she had nothing except a jar of oil. That was all she needed for her miracle.

Elisha told her to go and borrow many empty containers. Her sons brought her empty containers until there were none left in the town. Then she was to go into her house, shut the door, and pour her jar of oil into all the empty containers. Every container available was filled, and only then did the oil stop flowing. Elisha told her to sell the oil, pay off the family debt, and they were to live off of the rest. God wants to shower us with His abundance, too, in one way or another.

Both widows in these stories were at their lowest points when God performed His greatest miracles. They had come to the end of all possibility when God arrived on the scene and accomplished the impossible. Faith means confidently hoping in something we do not see (Rom. 8:24 &25 and 1Peter 1:3 & 4). When our circumstances are telling us otherwise, we can know beyond the shadow of a doubt that we are still blessed. It’s all a matter of perspective. With confidence we can put our trust in God’s love and faithfulness because He is greater than the circumstances around us. By faith, we can live as blessed people because we have His Holy Spirit, His oil, operating in and through our lives.

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Thankful in Times of Opposition – Part 3 of 4

Both Joshua and Caleb had the kind of faith where they were willing to be used by God to make a difference in their society. That’s because they never forgot their origins. They remembered that they were the chosen people of God and that their God was all-powerful. They also chose to remain faithful to God no matter what the cost. That included standing up to popular opinion. Everyone else, except for Moses, wanted to listen to the ten spies that had come back with a fearful report. Joshua and Caleb tried to persuade them differently, but to no avail. The discussion got so heated that the people threatened them with stoning.

How do you feel when others put you down or scorn your Christian faith? Do you wilt away, hoping that they won’t take notice of you in the future? Or do you stand up taller and smile brighter knowing that you’re an heir and a ruler in the family of God?

People will take notice of you, and they’ll want to know what your secret is if you’re willing to have the attitude of Joshua and Caleb. God created you with enormous potential. As you meditate on what God says about you in the scriptures, then you won’t have to worry about what others might think, say, or do.

Part of living out your faith includes having to go against the regular flow of society. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “Most people are thermometers that record or register the temperature of majority opinion, not thermostats that transform and regulate the temperature of society.” We know that Dr. King stood for what he believed in despite all the threats and criticisms that he had to face.

You have to decide if you will be the thermostat and transform society or just another thermometer. Will you make yourself available to be used by God to make a difference in the lives of others around you? Do you believe that with God you have the potential to make your life and future a success?

Perhaps you’ve lost yourself in the daily grind of caring for your children, your husband, and your home, and you no longer know who you are. Or, maybe sin and fear are standing in the way of a joyous and faith-filled life.

The Israelites were offered their freedom and a blessed future if they would turn away from their idols and worship and obey God. Instead, they preferred their spiritual and even their physical slavery to God’s gift of freedom.

Don’t be a slave to your family, to sin, or to fear. If you’re going to be a slave, then be a slave to the Lord. The apostle Paul was a Roman citizen and therefore a free man, but he wrote that He was a slave of Christ Jesus. To be a slave of Jesus actually means to be free – free from the bondage of sin and death. The devil came to steal, kill and destroy, but Jesus has come to give us life and to give it abundantly (John 10:10).

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Thankful in Times of Opposition – Part 2 of 4

If you have lost your God-given dream or never dared to have one, I’ve got good news for you. God hasn’t lost it or forgotten it. Your past failures and disappointments don’t have to hold you back from living out your destiny. God uses the positive as well as the negative experiences to shape your future.

God is not looking for flawless people but for real people willing to offer their strengths and weaknesses for His service. Perhaps Moses seemed an unlikely candidate, but God wanted him because he had become a humble man and was therefore ready for God to use. He was used mightily in signs and wonders and on such a dramatic scale. Perhaps an even greater achievement was that God used him to write the first five books of the Old Testament.

God believed in him before all of these great achievements had taken place. God could see what no one else could even imagine. And because Moses obeyed, the unimaginable happened. Yet the Israelites didn’t believe in Moses the same way God did. They didn’t fully trust him as their leader. They also didn’t trust God Almighty. How come? Wasn’t it obvious that God was someone they could trust? Wasn’t He the God of their forefathers, of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob?

Well, a long period of slavery took its toll on them. They were stripped of their identity as God’s chosen people and, for most of them, their Jewish faith had become a thing of the past. Many of them by now were following the idolatry of the Egyptians. They did so because idolatry was more tangible to them than an obscure God.

God was dealing with people who had forgotten who He was, and they needed proof in order to believe in Him again. That’s why God performed such awesome miracles in their sight. He was also demonstrating to the rest of the known world that He was the only God; there was no other god beside Him.

No matter how many times God proved Himself to them, they continued in their fear and unbelief. As you already know, because of this, almost an entire generation never inherited the land that was promised to them.

Ongoing sin in their lives, for which they never willingly repented, as well as their past slavery, caused them to see themselves as weak and powerless. They didn’t believe that they were able to make a difference in their world. Ultimately, they didn’t believe that with God they had what it took to make their lives and their futures a success.

Of the first generation that originally left Egypt, only Joshua and Caleb ever entered the Promised Land. They helped the second generation take hold of their inheritance because they had refused to succumb to fear and unbelief.

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Thankful in Times of Difficulty – Part 2 of 4

Not very long afterwards, while standing on the outskirts of the Promised Land, the Israelites were faced with another test. Now God had previously promised them that the land that they were going to inherit would already be well established. They would live in houses that they hadn’t built with their own hands and enjoy vineyards that they hadn’t planted. Their scouts confirmed that the land was well inhabited and tremendously fruitful. They’d never seen anything like it in all their lives. However, when they saw the strength of the peoples in the land that God had promised them, they lost courage, and they lost hope.

The Israelites lost their courage and hope, because they hadn’t been practicing a grateful attitude. When things didn’t go their way, they would give Moses a piece of their mind. They even threatened to stone him. If they had taken the time to thank God for past breakthroughs, then they would have been more inclined to recognize His protection, His favor, and His power in their lives.

Have your eyes been focused on problems rather than on God’s blessings? Just as eating right and exercising protect your physical health, taking time to thank God for what He’s done in your life will protect your spiritual health. As you practice a thankful attitude on a daily basis, it’ll be easier to notice the silver lining in the dark clouds of difficulty. You might be surprised to find that your difficulties aren’t as bad as you had previously imagined.

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Thankful in Times of Difficulty – Part 1 of 4

How do you handle life when it’s not going your way? Every time in the Old Testament when the Israelites faced new difficulties, they would throw up their arms in fear or despair. Instead of staying focused on God, their problems would cause them to lose peace of mind.  

Soon after crossing the Red Sea, Moses went up the mountain to speak to God. When a few days had passed and he hadn’t yet returned, the people gave up waiting for him and decided to take matters into their own hands. They created a golden calf to be their god. It was the same gold that God had made available through the Egyptians, who gave it willingly to the Israelites when they left Egypt.

They chose to replace the living God with idolatry. What do you turn to in difficult times? Do you turn to things like food, shopping, unwholesome relationships, or anywhere else other than to God, for that matter? Or, is God your only source when you are faced with the storms of life?

Fear is often the root of incorrect thinking and drives people to incorrect behavior. We can learn from the Israelites’ mistakes not to soothe our fears with created things, but to place our faith in the Creator who made everything. God wants to bless us because He’s a loving, merciful Father, but He’s also just. Therefore, we have much to gain or lose by the choices we make. 

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Thankful in Times of Sacrifice – Part 5 of 5

The topic in this series has been thankfulness. Another aspect of giving thanks is offering praise. To praise God when things are going well is easy and necessary. When things aren’t going well, it becomes a sacrifice of praise. In other words, it’s praise that’s offered during difficult times. Those times you don’t feel like praising Him are probably the times you need it most. Praising God is like making an investment, the kind of investment that always brings greater returns.

Praise is dynamic and active, not passive. It brings God’s presence into any situation. Whatever you are facing, God has a plan and a purpose. There is nothing that is uncertain to God. Praising Him allows His glory to shine through the darkness of uncertainty. It also brings freedom from emotional and spiritual bondage.

Praise God even before you see results and in every season of life. You’ll be glad you did!

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