Enjoying Money and Possessions vs. Sacrificing Money and Possessions

God owns everything - our lives, our time, and our money...

"The earth is the Lord's, and everything in it...." Psalm 24:1

"'The silver is mine and the gold is mine,' declares the Lord Almighty." Haggai 2:8

God therefore commands us to be responsible stewards of all He's given us...

"It is required of a steward that one be found trustworthy." 1 Corinthians 4:2b

A responsible steward will have a detailed plan for their finances - their giving, saving, investing, debt repayment, lifestyle, etc. They will exercise self control over their finances rather than their finances controlling them...

"Good planning and hard work lead to prosperity." Proverbs 21:5

God desires for us to enjoy what He's given us...

put your "hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment." 1 Timothy 6:17

Yet God also calls us to a radical sacrifice of our lives and our money for the purposes of following Jesus and spreading the gospel...

"Sell your posessions and give to the poor." Luke 12:33

"Any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple." Luke 14:33

"No one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to recived a hundred times as much in the present age...and in the age to come, eternal life." Mark 10:29-30

Lately, I feel so torn. God's Word must be the ultimate authority for my life, yet I see troubling truths in it. While there are passages that clearly talk about our enjoyment of God's material blessings in our lives, there are far more passages that command the abandonment, sacrifice, and giving away of earthly wealth and possessions so that Jesus' love may be extended to the lost and needy around us. Oh how I desire the wisdom and discernment to understand God's Word in this matter. Oh how I long to be obedient. I don't want to pursue stuff and in the process miss Christ and the unmatched pleasures that He gives to a life free from bondage to the possessions of this world. I don't want to miss eternal treasure because I settle for earthly trinkets!

Confidence in Uncertainty

I am feeling confident lately.
Not because any circumstances have changed, not because I can see how everything is going to work out, and not because I am convinced that bad or hard circumstances will stay far away. No, I have confidence and peace because of who my God is. Specifically, because He is good.

God's goodness is part of His character. He has always been good. He will always be good. He cannot not be good because it is who He is. And, who He is will never change.

His goodness gives me a peaceful confidence that no matter what my circumstances look like, no matter what I may be feeling, and no matter what uncertainties may lie in the future, my life is safely in His hands. Nothing will come to my doorstep without having first passed-through the permission of His goodness.

God's Word assures us that His goodness will provide what He knows is best for our lives.
Look at the following verses:

"Since He did not spare even His own Son but gave Him up for us all, won't He also give us everything else?" Romans 8:32 (NLT)


"If you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask Him!" Matthew 7:11 (NLT)


"The Lord will withhold no good thing from those who do what is right." Psalm 84:11 (NLT)


A summary of  these three verses would be:
Since God was willing to give us the most costly of all gifts - His Son - shouldn't we therefore trust that He will not withhold any other good thing from our lives? And, since we as sinful and imperfect people know how to give good gifts to one another, isn't it logical that our perfect and holy Father will be far more able to give us good gifts?!?! Live your life unto Jesus - as rightly, as innocently, and as purely as you know how - and He will withhold no good thing from you!

Because He is good, we can have confidence - even in the midst of uncertainty.

When Your Soul Is Downcast...

I have been discouraged lately. I told God this morning that I really needed to hear from Him today.
He was faithful to answer from His Word! I shudder to think how many times I've cried out for help or needed to hear from God, yet never received what I needed simply because I never opened my bible.

God's encouragement for me today:

My soul is downcast within me. 

Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: 

Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. 

They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. 

I say to myself, "The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for Him." 

The Lord is good to those whose hope is in Him, to the one who seeks Him. 

It is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.

Lamentations 3:20b-26

My modern-day translation:
Your Lord is filled with love and compassion for you at the start of each new day. Because of that (and regardless of what you may be feeling or experiencing) you have every reason to have hope!!! Because of His great faithfulness, you have nothing to fear, dread, or be discouraged by. He is all that you need - more than you need! Since He is, just wait for Him. He will come through. If you hope in Him and seek Him, you will experience His goodness. Wait for Him - He will not disappoint!

For the Praise of His Glory

It's not about you.

We have not been placed on this Earth for the purpose of our own enjoyment. We are not existing to execute our own plan or to make a name for ourselves. We have not been created simply to be happy, to be prosperous, to be comfortable, and to be successful.

The Creator clearly expresses His intent for our lives in the first chapter of Ephesians:

"He chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless...to the praise of His glory..... In Him we were also chosen...in order that we...might be for the praise of His glory....You were marked in Him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit...to the praise of His glory." (Eph 1:4a, 6a, 11a, 12b, 13b, 14b)

Leaving no room for uncertainty, God is explicit in the fact that He has chosen and redeemed us so that we will live "for the praise of His glory." Period. No other life purpose listed by the Almighty God except this one: you exist to bring glory to me.

How are you doing with that assignment?

Back to the topic of idols....

The more I study the Word, the more I am gripped by the awesome God who continually pours out His undeserved blessings upon my life - and thus deserves my best and highest. There is none who compares to Him, The Lover of our souls! A popular worship song right now puts it this way:

 Love so amazing, 

so divine, 

demands my soul, 

my life, my all.

When we allow the things of this life to become more important and more pressing than our relationship with Him, we have embraced an idol. And, God is clear in His Word that He detests idols. He is clear in His Word that those who embrace idols are fools. He is deeply grieved at the presence of idols that eliminate our ability to experience His fullness. Let's look at some examples of modern-day idols that I listed two blogs ago:

Your Family
When you devote so much time, thought, and energy on issues pertaining to your family that you neglect the development of your relationship with your Lord, your study of His Word, and your obligation of service to His Kingdom, your family has become an idol.

Your Job
When your devotion to your career becomes more of a priority than your devotion to growing in your walk with God, your job has become an idol.

Beauty and The Physical Body
When it feels important to you to be beautiful and when you therefore spend a disproportionate amount of time and money doing or buying what you believe will make you beautiful, your body has become an idol. If you experience emotional turmoil when you fail to meet what you consider to be the cultural definition of beauty, your body has become an idol. Your physical beauty has become more important than your inner, spiritual beauty.

TV//Internet/Technology/Hobbies/Athletics
When you are willing to spend hours engaged in any of these activities, yet unwilling to spend that same amount of time in bible study or ministry to others, they have become an idol. When these activities bring you more pleasure and enjoyment than the activities of the Kingdom of God, they have become an idol.

Education
When the pursuit of an education and the attainment of degrees replaces the priority of seeking, knowing, and doing God's will for one's life, education has become an idol.

Busyness
When our calendar is filled with such busyness - even church busyness - that we do not have time to be quiet in the presence of the Lord (seeking Him through His Word and allowing Him to speak to us, convict us, change us, etc), we are far too busy. Busyness has become an idol.

Sexual Gratification
When we seek after sexual gratification in any way outside of the marriage covenant, therefore knowingly disobeying our Heavenly Father, sex has become an idol. When our commitment to the Lord is less important that feeding our desires, those desires have become idols.

Food/Alcohol/Cigarettes/Substances
When we mindlessly and regularly turn to these things to provide comfort, satisfaction, and temporary escape - rather than allowing the Lord to meet those needs - they have become an idol. When we're more interested in feeding our appetites than in submitting our flesh to the Lord, those appetites have become idols.

Medicine and Doctors
When we regularly place a large amount of hope, trust, and confidence in medicine and doctors to fix our ailments, and do not feel a need to consult The Great Physician for His healing solutions, the world of medicine has become an idol.

Money Material Possessions
When we feel a real sense of need to have money and things, when it is important to continue attaining more money and more things, and when we find ourselves constantly comparing what we have to what others have, money and material possessions have become an idol.

The Supernatural, Astrology and Horoscope
When we place value in non-biblical, supernatural, or astrological sources for information and guidance concerning events of this life, these things have become an idol. 


Shew......now that I've written all of that I'm realizing I need to get busy dethroning some idols! Perhaps you can say the same?

!!! My Valentine !!!

Well, I had said that today I would discuss in more detail the list of potential, modern-day idols with which I ended my last entry. But......it's Valentines Day. Quite frankly, my blog is not a priority today. My husband is. I've got to get busy making him my special Valentines dessert before appointments and meetings begin at noon. So, next time I will get back to the topic of idols that steal our hearts away from the Lord. For now, I will leave you with a word about my Valentine:

Nick and I have been married for 4.5 yrs. This will be the 5th Valentines Day we've shared together. We are best friends, and I mean that completely. Nick would unashamedly tell you the same. We prefer one another over any other person on this earth. We enjoy each other more and more as each week goes by. We're buddies, and we say that regularly. We pray together. We serve the Lord together - and He is REALLY blessing our love. We share the conviction that we are His and that therefore every aspect of our marriage (our commitments, our finances, our careers, our time, etc) must be spent according to His Word. We've had some bumps and detours, but we've ironed-out every one before we closed our eyes at night. This way, we've remained strong and unified; wrestling with and doing life hand-in-hand. Nick loves me constantly, with such thoughtfulness, and I am chronically thankful for him. I wear a smile most all the time when we're at home together. I have prayed frequently for God to help me in my ability to respect Nick as the head of our marriage. I don't do this perfectly, but forgiveness flows freely between us. I love being married! I love my husband. He is SUPER. Marriage done God's way is SUPER. Come what may, I will stand firm on that conviction. Nick and I share a depth of intimacy and understanding that I can only describe as........perfect. We have both been forever changed for the much-better because of the way that God has orchestrated our love and used us to chisel one another. For all the nay-sayers out there............oh the joy, oh the purpose, oh the satisfaction, oh the fun, oh the challenge, oh the blessing you're missing out on. Time and life don't have to kill love. The fires at my house are still burning!

Happy Valentines Day to you........and especially to my Valentine!

A Jealous God... Exposing Our Idols

God goes to great lengths in His Word to portray Himself as our Jealous Lover. It's sad really: the Creator of all time and space stooping to speak into our tiny, human existence in an attempt to convince us that He is worthy of our heart's attention.

God began this pitiful yet necessary game of persuasion long ago with the Israelites. For them He unbelievably made a dry passageway in the middle of a huge sea! For them He miraculously released that same sea to consume the tormentors that had held them in bondage for 400 years! For them He preserved their every shoe and every shirt so that they had no lack of coverage while wandering in a scorching desert for 40 years! For them He literally rained-down food from heaven! For them He wildly parted yet another body of water and led them into a gorgeous land where He executed hundreds of thousands of their enemies!

The Lord of all Lords provided all of this for the Israelites, yet still He knew it would be necessary to continue proving Himself to them. You see, the Israelites were surrounded by nations that worshipped man-made idols. Men and women, created by God, fashioned with their own hands bookshelf figurines before whom they bowed. From wood and metal statues they sought wisdom and guidance! In times of war and fear, they even enhanced and reinforced their idols to ensure that they would stand and continue in their "powers." Pitiful.

And so, because of this disgusting idolatry, we find God engaged in dialogue with His people (see Isaiah 40-44). The Sovereign and Holy One speaks with persuasion in order to retain the hearts of those He has loved and blessed for hundreds of years. How sad that He has to do this.

Now, let us turn our eyes upon ourselves:
After all He's done for us, all He's given and provided, and all He's delivered us from - is God still trying to win our hearts? Is His Spirit still contending with our waywardness in an attempt to pull our hearts away from our idols? What idols fill our lives? What idols cause take our eyes and hope away from the Lord? What false Gods are you seeking for help, comfort, or counsel rather than the one true God? What consumes your thoughts, time, energy, and emotions? Is it God Himself, or is it some idol which leaves you with nothing left to give the Lord?

Consider if any of the list below may be an idol in your life:
Your Children
Your Family
Your Job
Beauty and the physical body
TV
Education
Busyness
Sexual Gratification
Food
Computer, internet, and other technology
Hobbies
Alcohol, cigarettes or other substances
Medicine
Pursuit of material possessions
Sports
Astrology and horoscope


Stay tuned - next we'll explore how the things on this list are often idols in our lives ....