Matthew 21:19 and he noticed a fig tree beside the road. He went over to see if there were any figs, but there were only leaves. Then he said to it, “May you never bear fruit again!” And immediately the fig tree withered up.
Matthew 13:22 The one who received the seed that fell among the thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful.
"unfruitful." Thomas Magister says, Trees, which are "eukarpa of good fruit," are those, the fruit of which is useful to men for food; those akarpa, "without fruit" on the other hand, are those, the fruit of which men do not use for food: but akarpon never means "having no fruit at all," in any ancient writer. Bengel 1.187
Ephesians 5:11 Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.
Galatians 5:19 The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21 and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control.
What our lives are producing can be monitored moment by moment. A meditation on scriptural truth and hope in the life to come produces the fruit of joy in all its various forms which is useful and good. Obsessing about the concerns of this life and putting our hope in money produces only leaves that are useless and worthy of condemnation. What our lives are producing will tell us where our thoughts are focused and this can be adjusted.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Plan for Holiness
Proverbs 4
23 Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.
24 Put away perversity from your mouth; keep corrupt talk far from your lips.
25 Let your eyes look straight ahead, fix your gaze directly before you.
26 Make level paths for your feet and take only ways that are firm.
27 Do not swerve to the right or the left; keep your foot from evil.
The bottom line here is that protecting the heart in order to benefit your life means planning for righteousness and sticking to that plan for the day. During morning devotions we can ask, “What work needs to be addressed? What social engagements are planned? What leisure opportunities are available to me?" and then, "How will I pursue purity in all these things? How will I avoid the temptation towards evil that lies in every good?"
As I plan my work I can imagine it without anger but filled with thanksgiving to the one who has blessed me with ability.
1Th 5:18 give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
Jas 1:20 for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.
As I imagine my social conduct, I can picture myself saying only those things that build others up.
1Th 5:11 therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.
2Co 12:20b I fear that there may be quarrelling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, factions, slander, gossip, arrogance and disorder.
I can imagine myself patient and attentive while driving, wholesome in my entertainment and loving toward my family and then carry that picture with me all day.
Planning and executing righteousness can imitate the same thinking process that accompanies any project that calls upon our efforts in areas where we are not experts. We imagine the process and refine it in our heads long before we head out to the hardware store to buy materials and tools.
Holiness requires planning an intentional course for the day.
How will you start tomorrow?
23 Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.
24 Put away perversity from your mouth; keep corrupt talk far from your lips.
25 Let your eyes look straight ahead, fix your gaze directly before you.
26 Make level paths for your feet and take only ways that are firm.
27 Do not swerve to the right or the left; keep your foot from evil.
The bottom line here is that protecting the heart in order to benefit your life means planning for righteousness and sticking to that plan for the day. During morning devotions we can ask, “What work needs to be addressed? What social engagements are planned? What leisure opportunities are available to me?" and then, "How will I pursue purity in all these things? How will I avoid the temptation towards evil that lies in every good?"
As I plan my work I can imagine it without anger but filled with thanksgiving to the one who has blessed me with ability.
1Th 5:18 give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
Jas 1:20 for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.
As I imagine my social conduct, I can picture myself saying only those things that build others up.
1Th 5:11 therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.
2Co 12:20b I fear that there may be quarrelling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, factions, slander, gossip, arrogance and disorder.
I can imagine myself patient and attentive while driving, wholesome in my entertainment and loving toward my family and then carry that picture with me all day.
Planning and executing righteousness can imitate the same thinking process that accompanies any project that calls upon our efforts in areas where we are not experts. We imagine the process and refine it in our heads long before we head out to the hardware store to buy materials and tools.
Holiness requires planning an intentional course for the day.
How will you start tomorrow?
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Compelling Character
Titus 2:9 Teach slaves to be subject to their masters in everything, to try to please them, not to talk back to them, 10 and not to steal from them, but to show that they can be fully trusted, so that in every way they will make the teaching about God our Saviour attractive.
Trustworthiness makes the faith attractive. A belief system that produces this universally valued commodity displays the merit of those ideas and proves them worthy of further investigation.
Many things would make a believer seem untrustworthy; immorality, emotional- imbalance, lack of love, misplaced priorities, lack of humility, unwillingness to listen and learn and change, but his character is meant to bring veracity to his claims.
2Ti 3:14 But you must remain faithful to the things you have been taught. You know they are true, for you know you can trust those who taught you.
Trustworthiness makes the faith attractive. A belief system that produces this universally valued commodity displays the merit of those ideas and proves them worthy of further investigation.
Many things would make a believer seem untrustworthy; immorality, emotional- imbalance, lack of love, misplaced priorities, lack of humility, unwillingness to listen and learn and change, but his character is meant to bring veracity to his claims.
2Ti 3:14 But you must remain faithful to the things you have been taught. You know they are true, for you know you can trust those who taught you.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
The Difference Between Being Needed and Being Loved
In our language, being needed is almost synonymous with being loved. If someone were to say, I don’t need you.” We would take it as a strong indication that we were not wanted, not loved, that we had lost our place of belonging and that we should consider leaving.
If someone were to say, “I love you, but I do not need you.” it could change the entire dynamic of the relationship. Rather than feeling necessary, but sometimes used, drained and discarded like an empty container, we could feel valued, wanted, even enjoyed, which frees one to love in the same way. The relationship becomes more mutual, more communal and in fact our place of belonging becomes that much more secure.
What if God did not need us but loved us? What if that were the model relationship that was intended to set precedent in the church? What if love were to replace neediness in all of our relationships? Would it convert selfishness to generosity? Would the reciprocity enhance and strengthen relationship and belonging as opposed to eroding it? Could we find security in love as opposed to anxiously making ourselves merely necessary?
Psalm 50:9 But I do not need the bulls from your barns or the goats from your pens.
10 for every animal of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills.
11 I know every bird in the mountains, and the creatures of the field are mine.
12 If I were hungry I would not tell you, for the world is mine, and all that is in it.
John 13:34 So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other.
1Peter 1:22 You were cleansed from your sins when you obeyed the truth, so now you must show sincere love to each other as brothers and sisters. Love each other deeply with all your heart.
If someone were to say, “I love you, but I do not need you.” it could change the entire dynamic of the relationship. Rather than feeling necessary, but sometimes used, drained and discarded like an empty container, we could feel valued, wanted, even enjoyed, which frees one to love in the same way. The relationship becomes more mutual, more communal and in fact our place of belonging becomes that much more secure.
What if God did not need us but loved us? What if that were the model relationship that was intended to set precedent in the church? What if love were to replace neediness in all of our relationships? Would it convert selfishness to generosity? Would the reciprocity enhance and strengthen relationship and belonging as opposed to eroding it? Could we find security in love as opposed to anxiously making ourselves merely necessary?
Psalm 50:9 But I do not need the bulls from your barns or the goats from your pens.
10 for every animal of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills.
11 I know every bird in the mountains, and the creatures of the field are mine.
12 If I were hungry I would not tell you, for the world is mine, and all that is in it.
John 13:34 So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other.
1Peter 1:22 You were cleansed from your sins when you obeyed the truth, so now you must show sincere love to each other as brothers and sisters. Love each other deeply with all your heart.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Do you love God or just love people?
Do you love God or just love people?
Really Loving Christians is the proof.
1Jo 4:20 If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar.
The Key point is this: Real love for Christians stems from our love of God, not our love of people.
1Jo 5:2 This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands.
So ask yourself…
1. Do you love the God of the Bible who ordered genocide?
De 20:16 In those towns that the LORD your God is giving you as a special possession, destroy every living thing. 17 You must completely destroy the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, just as the LORD your God has commanded you.
2. Do you love the God of the Bible who is sovereign over unspeakable suffering?
2Kings 6:24 Some time later, however, King Ben–hadad of Aram mustered his entire army and besieged Samaria. 25 As a result, there was a great famine in the city. The siege lasted so long that a donkey’s head sold for eighty pieces of silver, and a cup of dove’s dung sold for five pieces of silver. 26 One day as the king of Israel was walking along the wall of the city, a woman called to him, “Please help me, my lord the king!”
27 He answered, “If the LORD doesn’t help you, what can I do? I have neither food from the threshing floor nor wine from the press to give you.”
28 But then the king asked, “What is the matter?” She replied, “This woman said to me: ‘Come on, let's eat your son today, then we will eat my son tomorrow.' 29 So we cooked my son and ate him. Then the next day I said to her, ‘Kill your son so we can eat him,' but she has hidden her son.”
30 When the king heard this, he tore his clothes in despair.
3. Do you love the God of the Bible who condemns people to eternal judgment and suffering who have never even heard of Jesus?
Ac 4:12 Salvation is found in no-one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved."
Ro 10:14 How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?
Ro 1:18 But God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness. 19 They know the truth about God because he has made it obvious to them. 20 For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities––his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.
4. Do you love the God of the Bible who ordained His innocent son to suffer and die to pay for the sins of the world?
Ac 2:23 This man was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross.
Acts 4: 27 Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. 28 They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen.
5. Do you love the God of the Bible who chooses only a relative few to enjoy the eternal consequences of Christ’s sacrifice.
Mt 22:14 "For many are invited, but few are chosen."
6. Do you love the God of the Bible who dispenses his mercy exclusively based on his own pleasure?
Isa 46:10 My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.
Ro 9:16 It (Being divinely considered and treated as a child of God) does not, therefore, depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy.
7. Do you love the God of the Bile who sent his son with you in mind to personally redeem you from humanly unstoppable sin and the eternal separation from him that logically follows.
Ro 5:8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Ep 1:4 Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. 5 God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.
Jo 5:24 "I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.
1Jo 5:13 I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.
8. Do you love the God of the Bible and trust him to manage everything in such a way that he receives recognition as the supreme, righteous, perfect, beautiful One?
Because it is the love we have for God that distinguishes a Christian from a humanist. It is our supreme love for God that distinguishes us from those who have a supreme love for humanity.
The difference between being wonderful, funny, big-hearted, loving, loveable people who view God as a means of comforting others, and actually being in an unbreakable eternal relationship with God… is a supreme love for God - with all heart and soul and mind and strength and yet-unresolved questions. In doubt, we turn to our experience of his love for us in Christ and trust in his love.
1Jo 4:16 And so we KNOW and RELY ON the love God has for us.
Real love for others stems from our love for God, not our love of people.
1Jo 5:2 This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands.
1Jo 5:21 Dear children, keep away from anything (including humanism) that might take God’s place in your hearts.
Can I say at the end of it all, “God what lands in your court, is a lot of stuff I find gross and disturbing and objectionable, but what lands in my court is a bewildering quantity and quality of love, the experience of which so overwhelms any sense of doubt that I cannot help but love you.
1Jo 3: How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we (sinners) should be called children of God! And that is what we are!
Really Loving Christians is the proof.
1Jo 4:20 If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar.
The Key point is this: Real love for Christians stems from our love of God, not our love of people.
1Jo 5:2 This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands.
So ask yourself…
1. Do you love the God of the Bible who ordered genocide?
De 20:16 In those towns that the LORD your God is giving you as a special possession, destroy every living thing. 17 You must completely destroy the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, just as the LORD your God has commanded you.
2. Do you love the God of the Bible who is sovereign over unspeakable suffering?
2Kings 6:24 Some time later, however, King Ben–hadad of Aram mustered his entire army and besieged Samaria. 25 As a result, there was a great famine in the city. The siege lasted so long that a donkey’s head sold for eighty pieces of silver, and a cup of dove’s dung sold for five pieces of silver. 26 One day as the king of Israel was walking along the wall of the city, a woman called to him, “Please help me, my lord the king!”
27 He answered, “If the LORD doesn’t help you, what can I do? I have neither food from the threshing floor nor wine from the press to give you.”
28 But then the king asked, “What is the matter?” She replied, “This woman said to me: ‘Come on, let's eat your son today, then we will eat my son tomorrow.' 29 So we cooked my son and ate him. Then the next day I said to her, ‘Kill your son so we can eat him,' but she has hidden her son.”
30 When the king heard this, he tore his clothes in despair.
3. Do you love the God of the Bible who condemns people to eternal judgment and suffering who have never even heard of Jesus?
Ac 4:12 Salvation is found in no-one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved."
Ro 10:14 How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?
Ro 1:18 But God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness. 19 They know the truth about God because he has made it obvious to them. 20 For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities––his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.
4. Do you love the God of the Bible who ordained His innocent son to suffer and die to pay for the sins of the world?
Ac 2:23 This man was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross.
Acts 4: 27 Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. 28 They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen.
5. Do you love the God of the Bible who chooses only a relative few to enjoy the eternal consequences of Christ’s sacrifice.
Mt 22:14 "For many are invited, but few are chosen."
6. Do you love the God of the Bible who dispenses his mercy exclusively based on his own pleasure?
Isa 46:10 My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.
Ro 9:16 It (Being divinely considered and treated as a child of God) does not, therefore, depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy.
7. Do you love the God of the Bile who sent his son with you in mind to personally redeem you from humanly unstoppable sin and the eternal separation from him that logically follows.
Ro 5:8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Ep 1:4 Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. 5 God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.
Jo 5:24 "I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.
1Jo 5:13 I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.
8. Do you love the God of the Bible and trust him to manage everything in such a way that he receives recognition as the supreme, righteous, perfect, beautiful One?
Because it is the love we have for God that distinguishes a Christian from a humanist. It is our supreme love for God that distinguishes us from those who have a supreme love for humanity.
The difference between being wonderful, funny, big-hearted, loving, loveable people who view God as a means of comforting others, and actually being in an unbreakable eternal relationship with God… is a supreme love for God - with all heart and soul and mind and strength and yet-unresolved questions. In doubt, we turn to our experience of his love for us in Christ and trust in his love.
1Jo 4:16 And so we KNOW and RELY ON the love God has for us.
Real love for others stems from our love for God, not our love of people.
1Jo 5:2 This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands.
1Jo 5:21 Dear children, keep away from anything (including humanism) that might take God’s place in your hearts.
Can I say at the end of it all, “God what lands in your court, is a lot of stuff I find gross and disturbing and objectionable, but what lands in my court is a bewildering quantity and quality of love, the experience of which so overwhelms any sense of doubt that I cannot help but love you.
1Jo 3: How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we (sinners) should be called children of God! And that is what we are!
Friday, August 7, 2009
Listening In Loss
Joy in loss is that internal evidence that God is real and aware and in control and good and for us and near and all-pervading.
In uncertainty, joy feels like peace.
Php 4:7 …the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Isa 26:3 You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you!
In fearfulness, joy translates into confidence.
Jer 17:7 “But blessed (happily receiving invisible support and sustenance from God) are those who trust in the LORD and have made the LORD their hope and confidence.
In loss, joy is trust.
Ps 9:10 Those who know your name will trust in you, for you, LORD, have never forsaken those who seek you.
1Ch 29:12 You are the ruler of all things.
Ps 145:17 The LORD is righteous in everything he does; he is filled with kindness.
In waiting, joy becomes patience
Ps 27:14 Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD.
Ps 40:1 I waited patiently for the LORD to help me, and he turned to me and heard my cry.
In grief, joy remembers our consolation
Heb 6:18 We who have fled to him for refuge can have great confidence (consolation KJV) as we hold to the hope that lies before us.
In suffering joy sees what cannot be lost.
2Ti 1:12 I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him for that day.
Ro 8:39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
In weakness joy abides in us as strength
Ne 8:10 the joy of the LORD is your strength."
2Ti 1:8 With the strength God gives you, be ready to suffer…
And suffer we will. May God make us ready to face loss and suffer with him and for him. May we hope in him alone and be filled to overflowing with joy.
In uncertainty, joy feels like peace.
Php 4:7 …the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Isa 26:3 You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you!
In fearfulness, joy translates into confidence.
Jer 17:7 “But blessed (happily receiving invisible support and sustenance from God) are those who trust in the LORD and have made the LORD their hope and confidence.
In loss, joy is trust.
Ps 9:10 Those who know your name will trust in you, for you, LORD, have never forsaken those who seek you.
1Ch 29:12 You are the ruler of all things.
Ps 145:17 The LORD is righteous in everything he does; he is filled with kindness.
In waiting, joy becomes patience
Ps 27:14 Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD.
Ps 40:1 I waited patiently for the LORD to help me, and he turned to me and heard my cry.
In grief, joy remembers our consolation
Heb 6:18 We who have fled to him for refuge can have great confidence (consolation KJV) as we hold to the hope that lies before us.
In suffering joy sees what cannot be lost.
2Ti 1:12 I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him for that day.
Ro 8:39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
In weakness joy abides in us as strength
Ne 8:10 the joy of the LORD is your strength."
2Ti 1:8 With the strength God gives you, be ready to suffer…
And suffer we will. May God make us ready to face loss and suffer with him and for him. May we hope in him alone and be filled to overflowing with joy.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Spending Money on Pleasure - Part 2
How much can I spend on my pleasure and how can I justify it to myself so I can sleep at night?
This is not the right question. The right question sounds more like, “How could I possibly give more to mission?” or, “How could I learn to be content with less so that the kingdom may advance more rapidly?” or “Could I eat out less, so I could do more to feed the hungry?”
Those are the right questions. I’m not sure they are the questions we are asking… yet. We are asking something more like, “How much do I have to give in order to ease my conscience concerning spending the rest on pleasure, comfort, security and status for myself and those who are an extension of myself, my family?”
After some reflection, here is a glib summary-statement of what quiets my conscience in this matter. “If it feels good do it.”
This is God’s advice with our giving toward the poor and the church and I think it can apply across the board.
2Co 9:7 Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.
This divine mandate establishes a budget priority for God’s people.
As our giving is to be calculated to produce joy and not stress…
2Co 8:13 Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard pressed, but that there might be equality.
…so all our spending should fall into line behind this priority. This is a “feeling” issue, but it is a feeling born out of hard facts. This of course begs for a family budget as an expression of long-term, joy-producing priorities.
The more accurate your budget, the more you will be able to enjoy generosity and meaningful contribution as well as pleasure-spending, within the confines of your income. A budget is meant to serve you in the production of joy and the reduction of guilt and anxiety.
Ac 20:35 It is more blessed to give than to receive.
Hudson Taylor discovered this and called it his “Spiritual Secret”. He learned to live with the absolute least, in order to give as much as he could. He found that the more he gave, the more joy he received. This is how he proved his faith and God’s sufficiency all at once. His story is compelling.
And this is, at least in part, the reward referred to in the verse that precedes the encouragement to give cheerfully: (2Co 9:6) Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously.
Try this. Take ten minutes (or more depending on the state of your financial records) and calculate what you spend on pure pleasure in a month or a year.
Look at your credit card and bank statement and ask, “What did I spend on myself and my family for pure pleasure?” These things are not evil, but more joy will be produced when you keep in mind your annual pleasure budget and weigh it against your annual giving budget. In accordance with true hedonism ask, “What brings maximum joy?”
By this you will discern priorities and see where change is necessary in order to live out joyful submission to God in his continual presence rather than intentionally forgetting him every time you are considering purchasing pleasure and living with a vague sense of remorse and insecurity afterward.
With all the facts in mind and priorities that lie open before the lord, each of us can make unique decisions that maximize our joy in the financial department of our lives.
So the process of how to enjoy when spending looks like this:
1. Analyze & justify before the lord.
Does this square with a budget designed to maximize my joy considering my long-term (eternal) priorities?
2. Enjoy the planning stage
3. Enjoy what you have planned and stop analyzing.(for now)
Unexpected expenses and community needs will always produce situational challenges, but even these can be made more joyful if we have left some breathing room in our budget. Knowing these things will come along.
Could my money afford more joy than I am receiving from the pleasure, convenience, security and status I am currently considering?
Could I be richer toward God? (Luke 12:21)
Could He receive more glory, the kingdom be further advanced, the church more assuredly built up, treasure more certainly stored where loss does not occur, if I scrutinized and calculated my pleasure spending with the same forethought I use when calculating my offering and charity?
Is there a balance between my pleasure spending and my giving that produces in me a shared joy with God and others as opposed to selfish temporary escapism that leaves doubt?
There are more questions to ask, but I will stop here for now.
This is not the right question. The right question sounds more like, “How could I possibly give more to mission?” or, “How could I learn to be content with less so that the kingdom may advance more rapidly?” or “Could I eat out less, so I could do more to feed the hungry?”
Those are the right questions. I’m not sure they are the questions we are asking… yet. We are asking something more like, “How much do I have to give in order to ease my conscience concerning spending the rest on pleasure, comfort, security and status for myself and those who are an extension of myself, my family?”
After some reflection, here is a glib summary-statement of what quiets my conscience in this matter. “If it feels good do it.”
This is God’s advice with our giving toward the poor and the church and I think it can apply across the board.
2Co 9:7 Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.
This divine mandate establishes a budget priority for God’s people.
As our giving is to be calculated to produce joy and not stress…
2Co 8:13 Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard pressed, but that there might be equality.
…so all our spending should fall into line behind this priority. This is a “feeling” issue, but it is a feeling born out of hard facts. This of course begs for a family budget as an expression of long-term, joy-producing priorities.
The more accurate your budget, the more you will be able to enjoy generosity and meaningful contribution as well as pleasure-spending, within the confines of your income. A budget is meant to serve you in the production of joy and the reduction of guilt and anxiety.
Ac 20:35 It is more blessed to give than to receive.
Hudson Taylor discovered this and called it his “Spiritual Secret”. He learned to live with the absolute least, in order to give as much as he could. He found that the more he gave, the more joy he received. This is how he proved his faith and God’s sufficiency all at once. His story is compelling.
And this is, at least in part, the reward referred to in the verse that precedes the encouragement to give cheerfully: (2Co 9:6) Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously.
Try this. Take ten minutes (or more depending on the state of your financial records) and calculate what you spend on pure pleasure in a month or a year.
Look at your credit card and bank statement and ask, “What did I spend on myself and my family for pure pleasure?” These things are not evil, but more joy will be produced when you keep in mind your annual pleasure budget and weigh it against your annual giving budget. In accordance with true hedonism ask, “What brings maximum joy?”
By this you will discern priorities and see where change is necessary in order to live out joyful submission to God in his continual presence rather than intentionally forgetting him every time you are considering purchasing pleasure and living with a vague sense of remorse and insecurity afterward.
With all the facts in mind and priorities that lie open before the lord, each of us can make unique decisions that maximize our joy in the financial department of our lives.
So the process of how to enjoy when spending looks like this:
1. Analyze & justify before the lord.
Does this square with a budget designed to maximize my joy considering my long-term (eternal) priorities?
2. Enjoy the planning stage
3. Enjoy what you have planned and stop analyzing.(for now)
Unexpected expenses and community needs will always produce situational challenges, but even these can be made more joyful if we have left some breathing room in our budget. Knowing these things will come along.
Could my money afford more joy than I am receiving from the pleasure, convenience, security and status I am currently considering?
Could I be richer toward God? (Luke 12:21)
Could He receive more glory, the kingdom be further advanced, the church more assuredly built up, treasure more certainly stored where loss does not occur, if I scrutinized and calculated my pleasure spending with the same forethought I use when calculating my offering and charity?
Is there a balance between my pleasure spending and my giving that produces in me a shared joy with God and others as opposed to selfish temporary escapism that leaves doubt?
There are more questions to ask, but I will stop here for now.
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