Wednesday, October 06, 2010

Show me your statement...

This coming Sunday we will be talking about everyone’s favorite topic:  Tithing and Giving.  Yes I am being facetious, tithing and giving is probably not our favorite topic, but it could be said that money is a topic that people think about… a lot.  We could say it’s the most popular topic!

When the topic of money comes up, its usually in the context of us not having enough of it.  We could all use a little more.  Someone once asked Nelson Rockefeller how much money was enough, and he responded “just a little more.”

But in reality, the issue is not how much money we have, but "what does God want to teach us about money?"

Did you know that there are over 500 verses in the bible that deal with prayer, over 500 verses that deal with faith, but there are over 2000 verses that deal with the subject of money and possessions?  Jesus talked about money in sixteen of His thirty-eight parables.  Clearly, from the bible's standpoint, there is something that God wants us to understand about His principles concerning money and possessions.

Why?   Perhaps it is because money is a test of our faith and our priorities. You see, money is something that is near and dear to us;  we need it to live; we use it to buy stuff that we need, and stuff that we want.  So the way we manage our money can tell us a lot about what we consider to be important.  The is an old adage:  Show me your checkbook, and I’ll show you your priorities. I suppose today it would be “look at your online account statement…!

I certainly don’t want to look at anyone’s account statement, but perhaps we should ask ourselves:  What would my account statement say about my priorities?  What would it say about my faith?

1 comment:

Josh and Tiffany said...

Your sermon got me thinking...when people say that they can't afford to tithe and the response is...you can't afford NOT to! On the rare occasion that in the past, I have not committed my firstfruits to tithing and have decided not to tithe because I think that I am going to be in the hole for some reason, I find that by not tithing, I am not saving any money...I find myself DEEPER in the hole when I am not giving God his due. I think that you hit it right on the money describing the removal of God's blessing (power) and protection from our enemy. God sustains us and our possessions and other things in our lives so they DON'T BREAK DOWN and FALL APART as a blessing to us! When God's blessing and protection are removed from our lives, it makes us sitting ducks for the attacks of the enemy and the place he loves to hit us first is financially! Commit your firstfruits!