It's A Trap!

The average American is trapped. In fact, the average Christ follower in America is trapped. It's an epidemic. It touches just about every family. It's an obstacle that every church has to deal with. Most everyone you will meet today is caught in this trap. What trap has sprung on us & has so many of us caught in its snare? 

Check your pocket or purse. That's probably where you keep your own personal trap. Look out in your garage, pull out your phone, take a quick look at your closet because you may have some more traps in there too. The trap that so many of us are caught in is the trap of serving our money & our stuff. The average American is carrying a debt of $15,000 just on their credit cards. And when you look at the total consumer debt in America & spread it out over our entire population, we all owe close to $37,000, even our children! Obviously we have a problem. We're caught. We're caught in the trap of chasing after & serving our money, our things, our toys, & it's not just messing up our national economy; it's destroying families.

So what do we do about it? How can we escape the trap or avoid it altogether? After all, our economy is designed to trap us. Businesses produce products that we didn't know we needed until we saw it. Then we can't imagine how we survived one day without that product. We'll take a perfectly good product we've had less than a year so that we can "upgrade" to the newer model. The system seems to be working against us. So what do we do?

Jesus has a lot to say about all sorts of areas of life, but especially money. If He wasn't teaching specifically about it, He was using it as a vehicle to teach a bigger truth. Jesus knew something. He knew that money gets our attention, & anything that gets our attention can get our hearts. So He didn't shy away from the topic. Instead, some of His most important teaching centered on money. In Matthew 6 Jesus warns us about which riches we're storing up, which kingdom we're building. We can invest in & build God's Kingdom, or we can invest in & build our own. Jesus warns us because when we build our kingdom, it's temporary. Someone can take it away, we can lose it, but when we invest in God's Kingdom, it's eternal & secure. Jesus goes on to point out that when you serve your stuff, worry is the automatic by-product. His whole warning is summed up when He says, "You cannot serve God & money."

Our money, our stuff is God's chief rival for our hearts & our devotion. When we serve our stuff, we find worry, tension, & an endless list of "What Ifs" that keep us chasing that next dollar or that next toy. When we serve our Savior, we find peace, joy, & contentment that is bigger than our circumstances. Jesus says, "Seek first God's Kingdom..."

"We Set Our Hearts Free From The Trap Of Serving Riches 

By Serving The One Who Richly Provides."

So what's that look like in real life? Here's a simple way to trust God over your stuff: start giving away some of your stuff. When we hoard or consume everything that we have, we're exposing the greed in our hearts, & we're steadily walking down the path toward trusting in & serving our riches. And by the way, this is true no matter your income or tax bracket. However, when we give, especially when we invest in God's Kingdom, we're putting something else at the top of our list. We're placing ourselves underneath something else. We're also moving toward a greater sense of dependence on our Father who provides for us, & in the process we discover ever greater depths of His faithfulness to us.

So how can you begin to invest in & build God's Kingdom rather than your own? How can you reprioritize your financial decisions to reflect trust in & service to your Heavenly Father & Your Savior?

That Awkward Moment...

We've all been in awkward situations. Blind dates, first dates, getting caught in a lie, wearing the same outfit as someone else at an event, they're all examples of when things get awkward & the tension goes up. In fact, we're all so worried about awkward situations or conversations that we've come up with some social rules to try to keep us from getting into one of those weird, awkward, tense moments. 

Here are just a few examples:

"Never talk about religion or politics."
"Never assume a woman is pregnant."
"Never ask a woman her age."
"Never ask a woman her weight."

Notice how some of these that I just thought of off the top of my head revolve around not asking women sensitive things? That's because most of us men are too oblivious to realize there are some things you just don't do. Therefore rules had to be made to keep us out of trouble. Well, there's a similar rule that is at play in a lot of churches. It's an unwritten, even unspoken, rule, but it's alive & well in most places because it's an issue that always ramps up the tension & makes everyone feel a little awkward. So we end up ignoring this issue, but in ignoring we also ignore an issue that Jesus, whom we claim to follow, talked about a lot. Doesn't it seem weird to avoid a subject our Savior talked about so much & therefore miss out on what He had to say about it? So what is this issue? What is this thing we don't really like talking about, even if it means completely missing out on what Jesus had to say about it?

It's money.

That's right, money. Nobody likes talking about it, not pastors & certainly not the people the pastors are talking to about it. It makes us all a little uneasy. However, not talking about it may cost us more than actual wading into a tense subject.

When Jesus was confronted with the issue of money, politics, & religion in Luke 20:20, he didn't focus as much on money as we might think. The point He made was this, "Give to God what belongs to God." He used the money as a vehicle to teach a powerful truth. The coin was made in the image of Caesar. Humanity is made in the image of God. The lesson: If Caesar asks for the thing made in his image, give it to him, but more importantly make sure you give to God the thing made in His image. In that little exchange Jesus taught us a powerful lesson about money, faith, & the biblical concept of stewardship.

"Stewardship Is Not About Your Money. Stewardship Is About Your Life."

Jesus had an opportunity to go in depth about money in this moment, but instead He chose to look at the big picture. The truth is that it doesn't really matter who you dedicate your life to if you dedicate your life to the wrong thing. God has made us in His image. Therefore, everything about you should be leveraged to glorify Him: your day to day life, your family, your relationships, your work, your ministry, & yes, your money & stuff. As followers of Jesus, we are not only made in God's image, we've been bought with a price by the blood of Jesus. Therefore, we must seek to live a life that in every way declares our faith in Him rather than in ourselves or in the things of this world. Stewardship isn't about money. It's about a journey of faith where we seek to live a life that is constantly more & more devoted to trusting in our Heavenly Father, His Son, & His word.

What step of faith have you been resisting? Reading God's word more consistently? Becoming the godly parent your children need? Being the spouse you're called to be in Christ? Serving your congregation community? Trusting God with your finances? No matter which one of these you're wrestling with, they're all stewardship issues. After all, stewardship is not about your money. It's about your life.