Using Your Money Wisely

Don't try to hog it all for yourself.

Luke 16:9-13 Here’s the lesson: Use your worldly resources to benefit others and make friends. Then, when your earthly possessions are gone, they will welcome you to an eternal home.

10 “If you are faithful in little things, you will be faithful in large ones. But if you are dishonest in little things, you won’t be honest with greater responsibilities. 11 And if you are untrustworthy about worldly wealth, who will trust you with the true riches of heaven? 12 And if you are not faithful with other people’s things, why should you be trusted with things of your own?"

13 “No one can serve two masters.For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”

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Just about everybody loves money, some love to save it but most people love to spend it. In today's verses Jesus tells us that our allegiance to money and our faith in what it can do for us is at odds with our faith in God. God tells us to use our money for his purposes.

Jesus told a parable about a dishonest manager that is a little bit confusing, after-all isn't honesty the best policy, that's what I was always told. We need to realize that the dishonesty wasn't the point of the story.

Jesus said that the world's wisdom was better than the wisdom of some his followers.

Proverbs 23:4-5 Don’t wear yourself out trying to get rich. Be wise enough to know when to quit. 5 In the blink of an eye wealth disappears, for it will sprout wings and fly away like an eagle.

Jesus explains that the point of the story is that the manager used the money to benefit other people so that later they would recall his kindness and they would help him out. Jesus told us that unbelievers typically deal financially with each other so that they will win friends, whereas the believers often fail to use their financial resources to win people to faith, who will become their friends forever in heaven. The world tells us to use people to get money but Jesus says that people matter more than money and that we should use money to get more people.

We all have resources that we use everyday, the problem is that we usually use them for our own immediate satisfaction, we normally think of using our resources for our own benefit and we neglect to use them for the benefit of others or in order to advance God's kingdom.

Loving my money is a huge mistake and I will be severely disappointed when it disappears, but the friends that we win for Christ will be our friends forever, they will become part of the treasure that we are supposed to be storing up in heaven. (Luke 12:33-34)

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