Can a Christian’s faith be deeper than their pockets?
Here is the litmus test of a real faith: do you trust God with your money?
An older gentleman was recently sharing his testimony with me, and I asked him a question: Do you have any advice for younger Christians wanting to grow in their walk with God?
His answer was surprising (I paraphrase): "Yes. There's no such thing as faith without trust, and until they trust God with their money, they don't trust him at all."
I asked him to explain what he meant, and he said he had reached a plateau in his spiritual growth and he felt it was because he was still bound by financial worry. He prayed about this and a few weeks later was walking along the street when a $50 note fluttered across the footpath. He looked around and noticed that nobody was in sight, and he knew in that moment he had a choice: stuff it in his pocket or give it to God.
God had given him an opportunity to grow by bringing him face to face with that which kept him bound.
He took the money into a nearby church and handed it to the staff, asking that it be donated to charity if nobody claimed it.
Peace instantly settled upon his heart.
Trusting God with that fifty was symbolic for trusting Him for material provision for his entire life.
What would you have done?
His testimony reminds me of the rich young ruler in the Gospel of Mark (10:17-27). A rich young man came to Jesus asking what he had to do to inherit eternal life. Jesus basically told him to keep the ten commandments. The young man replied in the affirmative: "No problem! I've done all of that!" Jesus said: "One thing you lack: go and sell all you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heave; and come, follow Me."
Instead of following Jesus' advice the young man went away grieving.
Why is it so difficult to trust God with our money? I think part of the answer is that it is because we are so short-sighted. We have earthly economics in mind while God has heavenly economics in mind, and earthly economics deals in scarcity; heavenly economics deals in abundance. Paradoxically then, we can clutch tightly to scarcity at the expense of abundance.
Jesus came to bring you the abundance of heaven, but you can have your hands so full of the of scarcity of earth that you can’t receive it. Before abundance comes sacrifice and trust. If that seems upside-down to you, it's because it is. God's way is always counter-intuitive to ours. If it wasn't we probably wouldn't need him to point it out to us because we'd do it anyway.
This is about something more fundamental than provision, it's about trust: in what, in whom, do you place your trust and your security for the future? Can we claim to trust God with our eternal life but not with our temporal physical existence on earth? To flip that statement around: if you don’t trust God with your most basic needs now, can you really claim to trust Him with your spiritual needs?
To bring it back to the gentleman who shared his testimony, he let go of the fifty (which may have bought a couple of days worth of food) in return for a deeper sense of faith and trust in God, which will last him for all eternity.
God doesn't need your money, he needs your trust.
He demands it, because without that, He's got nothing to work with.
He wants to liberate you but can't until you trust Him with everything.
It’s about self-sufficiency vs God-sufficiency.
The question is: do I trust Jesus or not?
Do I trust Him to clothe me? To feed me? To provide for my needs?
If you don't want to take my word for it, listen to Jesus (Matt 6:25-34):
"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?
And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labour or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendour was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you - you of little faith?
So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the Pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father know that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."
A final thought: The most passionate worshiper is willing to bare their heart before God, but are they willing to bare their wallet, and if not, are they truly worshiping God?
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