Is your world upside down? Lost your job or at least, pay half of what it was? Investment and Retirement accounts 30% less than they were a year ago? House not worth what you owe on it? Wish things could go back to be like they were pre-recession?

Jeremiah exhorts us to think of it no longer, nor remember it, nor miss it. Of course he was preaching to the Jews in exile who longed for the day when they could go see God in the Ark of the Covenant. But, the exile helped them understand that God s not contained in a box. Instead, He is pervasively everywhere in our lives.

In difficult times, do not look nostalgically to the past. Jeremiah gives good advice.

God is doing something now.

When it comes to having to get along with less money than before, ask God what you should do now.

Because after all – It’s Not Your Money.

The parable of the fig tree in Luke 13: 6-9 reads like a ‘do it or else!’ message, like a parent must deliver to a disobedient child sometimes.

Could it be that if we are disobedient to His commands, and selfish with the gifts He’s given us, we may get the axe reserved for that fig tree? Maybe like the gardener amended and cultivated the soil, we should amend our attitudes toward money.

We should repent and admit that God gives us all we have.

We should submit to His commands and give of our resources for the good of the community.

We should do this gladly and joyfully, because after all –

It’s Not Our Money

Although Haggai is speaking to the Israelites returning from exile, with what’s going on in our world – the attacks on and decline of civility and morality, and the rise of secularism – could we be in a sort of exile ourselves?

The Lord says through the prophet in chapter 2, verse 4, “Take courage and work.  I am with you.”

If our work is solely for the money, then how are we any better than the secularists who seem to be overtaking our society?  If our focus is on trying to re-coup the former glories we thought we had in our large investment balances and McMansion homes, does that not distract us from building God’s kingdom?

Instead, work as though all you do is for the Lord.  Seek first His kingdom and all will be given you besides.  And do not worry about the money.  It’s not yours anyway.

Why do we strive so fiercly after money?  Psalm 49 tells us plainly that though we trust in our wealth, we can in no way redeem ourselves.  That with riches you may count yourself as happy, still there is no price one can pay to God for life.

Paul tells us in 1 Tim. 6: 9-11 that if we want to be rich, we will fall into traps and many senseless and harmful temptations.  We become slaves of our desires and possessions.  Sound familiar?

We are to strive instead for righteousness, love, patience, faith, endurance and gentleness.

If we truly believe that all we have is a gift from God, then whether from abundance or from lack, we admit –

It’s Not Our Money.

In John 6: 1-13, Jesus takes five loaves and two fish and feeds 5000. So – how does this relate to financial stewardship? Look at the boy in the story.

What if the kid had said, “I made this bread. I caught the fish. They’re mine.”  Andrew even mumbled our own skepticism, “what are they among so many people?”

But instead, the boy gave what he had – his food. And, Jesus used the boy’s resources to perform a miracle!

What miracle is Jesus waiting to perform with the resources you share, however meager you may think them? Because after all, It’s Not Your Money!