August 12th
The Sucking Sound of Greed
Therefore I thought it necessary to exhort the brethren to go to you ahead of time, and prepare your generous gift beforehand, which you had previously promised, that it may be ready as a matter of generosity and not as a grudging obligation. But this I say: he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. 2 Corinthians 9:5-6
What kind of life do you want? No, really, think about it. If money was no object and you had no limitations, what kind of life would you want?
Everyone will give you their opinions about your life and how you should live it. Fortunately for us, the Bible helps to filter out all these voices and build lives that we'll be glad to have lived.
In His Word, God advises us to choose quality over quantity. The world will scream at you, How much do you have? But God is screaming even louder, What kind of life are you living? What you have can't go with you when you die, but how you live your life determines your eternal reward, so what kind of life are you living?
That leads me to an important question: What's your greatest investment? Are you concerned first with what's happening on Wall Street, or in Heaven? Store up treasures in Heaven. Don't let greed rip you off, because the only way to store up eternal investments is to give. Give both regularly and irregularly-regularly as you tithe and irregularly whenever the Spirit prompts you to give above the minimum.
What really helps us in this is to keep things in perspective by establishing eternal values. Remember that, compared to eternity, your life on earth is immeasurably short. It is the most foolish thing we could do to live for what we can get here instead of what we can treasure up for eternity.
The Bible tells us that one day everything we've done in life will be tested by fire. We all have one life, but some people use their life to buy hay and some people use it to buy gold. When the trial by fire comes, the hay will go up in smoke, but the gold will only become more precious.
What's the point? The point is that we need to choose wisely how we live our lives, and a key part of that choice has to do with our money. Will we hoard it, spending it greedily on ourselves? Or will we give it generously as the Word tells us and the Spirit leads?
The choice is up to you, but choose wisely. You will reap the consequences of your choice for eternity.
Prayer Lord God,
Thank You for teaching me wisdom for how to live my life in a way that prepares me for eternity! I choose to listen to Your Word and follow Your Spirit as I give generously.
Amen