I did a bad thing by starting off my quiet time reading “The ABC’s of Financial Freedom” this morning. It is a book on Christian Stewardship. It immediately put me into a critical mode when I read a few quotes:
You and I should do some Christ-centered vision casting of our own and start thinking about what we could do if we were totally debt free…
Here are just a few suggestions to help you get started:
[there is a list of 10, but here are the whoppers-ds]
6. You could finally have that “dream” vacation
7. You could fix things up around you house or even get a new one.
8. You could get some new furniture or a new vehicle.
9. You cold surprise people with secret acts of kindness and generosity
10. YOU COULD DO ALMOST ANYTHING YOU CAN IMAGINE. (emphasis mine)
I’m not even going to comment on that. I think that pretty much speaks for itself.
All of that said, my church is about to have a few weeks of messages on “financial stewardship.” When I heard that we were going to be talking about money (it’s ok to say MONEY, it really is) I was interested. In light of the current economic state of the world, we need to really focus on our earning, spending, and buying with the Life of Jesus in us. There are a lot of people that need help unlearning the habits of the world and learning how to use their money for the Kingdom of God. Now more than ever is a time to speak up for the poor and use our overflow to wisely help them instead of blowing it on the new furniture we need or our “dream” vacation.
I think the hardest thing for me during this coming series will be to keep MY focus on Jesus, and not keep harping on all of the stuff I see wrong. But that focus is terribly important, because if I lose that focus, I will have done the same thing as the people that make finances and resources (money) the focus.
I can already tell that this is going to be hard.
“No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.”
Luke 16:13
I tried to skip to the parts of the book that talk about HOW to get out of debt, the first part made me too angry. It was very guilt producing in my opinion. My own debt issues are not from expensive living, but sending my daughters to college. When we started down that road everyone just said how wonderful it was to send them off to old KCU. Now the bandwagon is being debt free, with a kicker of so you can give the church more. Meanwhile our church brags about setting aside 10 percent to reach the lost while it spends 90 percent at home…partially to pay debt…people in glass houses? I won’t comment on the sections that said how rich we would be ourselves without debt, you already said it very well. peace