FINANCIAL PLANNING
      Dan was a single man living at home with his widowed father and working in the family business. When he found out he was going to inherit a fortune when his sickly father died, he decided he needed to find a wife with whom to share his fortune. One evening, at an investment meeting, he spotted the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Her natural beauty took his breath away. 
     "I may look like just an ordinary man," he said to her, "but soon, my father will die and I will inherit $200 million." Impressed, the woman asked for his business card and three days later, she became his stepmother. 
Women are so much better at financial planning than men.
      We would say the woman above was very shrewd in the way she handled the situation. Jesus talks about another situation of shrewdness about financial planning in Luke 16:1-13.
       He also said to His disciples: "There was a certain rich man who had a steward, and an accusation was brought to him that this man was wasting his goods. 2 So he called him and said to him, 'What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your stewardship, for you can no longer be steward.' 3 Then the steward said within himself, 'What shall I do? For my master is taking the stewardship away from me. I cannot dig; I am ashamed to beg. 4 I have resolved what to do, that when I am put out of the stewardship, they may receive me into their houses.' 5 So he called every one of his master's debtors to him, and said to the first, 'How much do you owe my master?' 6 And he said, 'A hundred measures of oil.' So he said to him, 'Take your bill, and sit down quickly and write fifty.' 7 Then he said to another, 'And how much do you owe?' So he said, 'A hundred measures of wheat.' And he said to him, 'Take your bill, and write eighty.' 8 So the master commended the unjust steward because he had dealt shrewdly. For the sons of this world are more shrewd in their generation than the sons of light. 9 And I say to you, make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon, that when you fail, they may receive you into an everlasting home. 10 He who is faithful in what is least is faithful also in much; and he who is unjust in what is least is unjust also in much. 11 Therefore if you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches? 12 And if you have not been faithful in what is another man's, who will give you what is your own? 13 No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon." 
     Jesus makes a comparison of the unjust steward and Christians. He points out that worldly people are more shrewd in their dealing with earthly wealth than we as Christians are with the spiritual wealth that is available to us (eternal life).
     True riches are found in heaven. Matthew 6:19-21 "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. 
    How are you at spiritual financial planning? Where is your heart? - LP

CAREERISM - DEVOTION TO A SUCCESSFUL CAREER, OFTEN AT THE EXPENSE OF ONE’S PERSONAL LIFE, ETHICS, ETC.
 What does it mean to be successful in life? The world around us believes that success is being wealthy, having popularity, having fame, living in the right neighborhood, and driving the right car. Anyone who takes a lower stress, less time consuming job in order to spend more time with family is considered lazy or at best just not ambitious enough. I want to suggest to you that God never intended for life to be lived the way many of us do today.

The Bible tells us that anyone who does not provide for his family is worse than an infidel, but what does he need to provide? The necessities of life are really not that many. Paul said that with food, and raiment we should be able to be content. I know I am not usually content with that, are you? We always want a little more than we have. Just when we think we have everything we want, some new invention or some new style comes along and suddenly, we are right back where we started. Jesus came that we might have life more abundantly, not that we might have things in more abundance.  We are driven many times by materialism that can only be fulfilled by practicing careerism. We somehow have been fooled into the belief that our lives won’t be fulfilled and our children won’t grow up ‘normal’ unless we buy everything that everyone else has. We constantly see people promoting ‘quality time’ but never ‘quantity time’. We need to have both.  I am going to start asking myself the following questions about my priorities, time, money, etc.:

1) Will this bring me closer to God or pull me farther away?
2) Will this draw me closer to my family or pull me away?
3) Will this encourage me to be moral and ethical or will it tempt me to be otherwise?
4) Will my life be better, really better, in any way because of this?
5) Will this interfere with something which would better help me in the above areas?

Not everything is clearly good or bad. Many of the things we spend our time and money on are neutral tools that become good or bad as a result of how we use them. Computers are a perfect example; they can be used for wonderful purposes like keeping in touch with family, friends and other Christians, or they can become destructive addictions that isolate us from life around us or draw us into sinful activities like pornography.

When I see how miserable the people who are supposedly successful by the world’s standards are I think to myself there must be a better way to live.  Let’s look to the Bible for guidance in life. After all God made us it wouldn’t surprise me if he knew what would make our lives worth living.
 

CAPITALISM - AN ECONOMIC SYSTEM IN WHICH INVESTMENT IN AND OWNERSHIP OF THE MEANS   OF PRODUCTION, DISTRIBUTION, AND EXCHANGE OF WEALTH IS MADE AND   MAINTAINED CHIEFLY BY PRIVATE INDIVIDUALS OR CORPORATIONS.
 As an economic system Capitalism works as well if not better than any other that has ever been used. We need to remember, however, that an economic system is just an economic system and not any part of the foundation for Christianity. It seems to me by all accounts of the early church that the system of economics working actively among them was a form of voluntary socialism or communism. Not that they divided everything equally, nor was it forced, but they had all things in common, no one thought of the possessions he had as his own, and they willingly sold their goods to care for the poor among them. I would like to see this attitude of stewardship return to the Lord’s church.

Capitalism is an effective economic system for a country, but the church cannot be effective if it holds too tightly to that doctrine. I have been in congregations where capitalism had taken over the church and the results were disastrous for the body. Here are a few of the problems that developed and the error of the thinking involved.

1) “Don’t sit there that is MY seat” - Have you ever seen this? Are you guilty of it? The Pharisees had a problem kind of like this one; (Mat 23:2) “Saying, The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat:” (Mat 23:6) “And love the uppermost rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues,” We don’t want to be like them

2) “Do it how I want or I will take MY money out of the treasury” - We need to remember that all that we have is a gift from God. The money that has been given into our keeping is not ours, nor do we deserve it any more than we deserve the air we breathe or the water we drink. We have no right to take God’s money out of the treasury unless the church is being disobedient to Him with it.

3) “This is MY/OUR church and we decide how things are done” - Is it really? Did any of us die to purchase the church with our blood? Are we baptized into our names our Christ’s name? What name does the church wear?  If it is the bride of Christ it better wear his name. There are no doubt many congregations and entire denominations that don’t belong to Christ, but we better.  Christ is the one who decides what his church is to do and we are here to obey.

4) “ME and MY FAMILY built this church” - Did you really, now?! If you and your family or my family and I built the church with which we worship then it is safe to say it isn’t the same one that Christ promised to build in Matthew 16:18

Now someone will say, “You know what I meant, and it isn’t like you are interpreting it”. I realize that we many times use phrases in our common language that are not meant in the way we say them. We say it is MY church meaning that it is the congregation I worship with. Often when someone speaks of building the church they mean the building. We must realize that many of the things we say leave the wrong impression and sometimes our speech exposes our true feelings. The church is spiritual and not physical, and it belongs to Christ. We cannot nor should we want to own it. We instead should be content and happy to be part of it.

I am never so glad that God is not under man’s law as when I read the parable of the workers in the vineyard in Matthew chapter 20. Jesus begins by telling us that he is using this earthly example to describe the way things are in the kingdom of heaven. Then he describes a man who owns a vineyard going out to find people to work for him. This man represents God in the story. Early in the morning he finds some workers and makes an agreement with them that if they will work they will receive a ‘denarius’ (the King James says penny) which was the average pay for a days work. The men agree and go to work. Later in the morning he goes to find more workers and they agree to work for “whatsoever is right.” He did this again at noon, 3 in the afternoon, and 5 in the evening. Then when it got dark they came to get their paycheck so to speak. 

This is where it starts to get really interesting because we would expect that if he was going to pay a day’s wage to the first group, then naturally he would pay less to those who worked less. But Jesus surprises us by telling that the man gave the ones who had worked the least a day’s wage. Well, then he is surely going to give the others who have worked longer more, right? Wrong! He gives them the same amount and they get mad. Be honest you probably would too. But was he “unfair”? Didn’t they get what they had agreed to receive? And wasn’t it his right to be generous and kind to the others who would not have had enough to feed their families if he had not? Would they have been mad if after being paid they had seen the same man give a beggar a denarius? Probably not. So, why were they so angry about this situation? They apparently thought that he was paying the others a higher hourly wage than they were getting. Then he asks the great question, “Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own?” Remember that this is a description of how things work in God’s kingdom.

If someone asked this question today the answer would have to be a resounding, “NO!” Let’s look at some of the laws this man in Jesus’ story broke. The ACLU and workers’ unions would have been all over this guy. There is no indication that he did the proper paper work on these workers, some of them might have been illegal. He also didn’t make sure that he was getting an equal cross-section of the population (i.e. - women, minorities, handicapped, etc.). The real problem though is the pay. Can you imagine what would happen if Wal-mart or any business hired 10 people who worked from 8 AM - 5 PM and 10 more people that worked from 4 PM - 5 PM and then gave them the same pay? The people who only worked an hour would be ecstatic, but there would be 10 others who would quickly be involved in a lawsuit, and they would surely win. No, it is not lawful to do what you will with your own in our country, there are thousands of regulations.

But these laws and regulations are exactly the reason that we should be grateful that God is above man’s law. Let’s look at the spiritual teaching in this parable for a minute. God goes out into the world to find people who will work in his vineyard, some come in the morning (at a young age) and work all day long (their whole lives). Others may come at later times (twenties, forties, sixties, even eighties) and only serve a short time. When the accounts are settled on judgment day, however, only the faithfulness of the service and not the length of the service will count. We must be faithful until the close of day to receive the reward. How sad if one who came early and worked most of the time were to quit and leave before receiving the reward.

Wouldn’t it be sad if we couldn’t receive a home in heaven because we didn’t come early enough, as some teach. What hope would there be for some one 50 years old who had never been taught the gospel? What could we tell them? “You can’t go to heaven, but maybe God will let you look in for a while at the gate.” How horrible that would be. Praise be to God that He accepts us at whatever age we learn and obey in faith.  This is not an excuse to “sow our wild oats” and think that we will get right with God later. There may not be a later. There are many benefits that come from serving God from the early morning hours, that may be lost if we don’t come until late in life. How many have come to Jesus late in life and regret that their health has been wasted by their sinful living, or that they raised worldly wicked children that they can not reach now. Those regrets may haunt them to the grave, but Heaven can still be their eternal home. 

God is just and He is fair and it is lawful for Him to do what He wants to with what is His. The labor laws don’t apply to Him, and no one will be able to sue or appeal to the government to overrule His decisions. Acts 10:34-35 says,  "Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: {35} But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him."

Jesus asks two questions in Matthew 16:26. First, "...what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” As we mentioned in our last article the answer is ‘nothing’ and in fact he has lost a great deal in the bargain. The second question is, “...what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” This is the question we want to focus on this week. Instead of thinking of ‘a man’ as Jesus asked the question, we need to make it more personal. It is always easy for us to tell what others should do or what some hypothetical person should or shouldn’t do in some hypothetical situation. It is quite different for us to look as honestly and objectively at our own lives. 

That is why we often ask a question as Jesus did to get an honest answer and then see if people will take it to heart and apply the lesson to their own lives. For example: when asked if it is wrong for someone to steal from them almost everyone would say, “yes, of course it would be wrong for someone to take something that belonged to me.” But when push comes to shove there are far fewer people who believe that principle, ‘it is wrong to take something that is not yours’ applies to them. We know it is wrong to steal, but many of us practice it on a regular basis. At this point people say ‘not me’ and some really mean it. Do you report all of your income on your tax forms? Have you ever bought or sold food stamps? Did you ever take a few supplies from your office or job? You see, most of us have never broken into someone’s house and carried out their TV, but many take things that don’t belong to them on a regular basis.

So, it is easy for us to say nothing is more valuable than a soul and nothing would be worth losing your soul. The real question is will we apply that fact to ourselves and the way we live our lives. Instead of wondering what a man will give in exchange for his soul, ask “what will I give for mine?” What answers do you come up with?

You may be thinking this is silly. Why would anyone ever make a trade that would cost his or her soul? The answer is simpler than you might think. Most of the time the soul is lost before it is even realized. Much like an addiction that starts working before the person realizes it. Maybe you have already traded your soul and don’t know it. With some it is alcohol and drugs. With others it is lust, pornography, and sexual immorality. With many it may be friends and family. With a few it is a job or a business or some other wealth building scheme. Sometimes it is apathy,  laziness, or a desire for fun and games. Maybe it is hatred, racism, or bigotry. Whatever pulls you away from God is what the devil will use to destroy your soul.

Ironic isn’t it that some of the very things God created for us to enjoy and to help bring us closer to him are the very things the devil adds to his own evil ways to try to draw us away. Who would ever imagine that the innocent little baby cooing in your arms could be exactly what Satan needs to keep you from prayer and Bible study. Sometimes Satan even uses churches and religion to keep people firmly in his grasp. When we put man-made rules and traditions before God’s word we have traded our souls for those things just as the Pharisees of Jesus day had.

What are you giving in exchange for your soul? I hope you won’t trade it, but even if you have there is good news. God is in the business of buying back or redeeming souls that have been traded. We would be happy to help you get your soul out of the devil’s hands and back into God’s. Let me know if we can help.