Faith Filled Family Magazine September 2016 | Page 32

financial responsibility. It’s
actually a beautiful picture,
drawing in all the different
types of offerings with the
festivals, with no-one left out.
Does this not give us a glorious picture of a caring father?
So true. God delights in providing for us, delights when we enjoy
what we’re given, and delights
when we share our abundance
with others in joyful community.
Money, properly used on earth,
brings a picture of perfect Trinitarian community – with shared
blessings unselfishly enjoyed by
all!

“From Job we learn how little
control we have over our
wealth” page 21. How do
we balance having little control over our wealth with our
responsibilities with regard
to earning wealth? (As Paul
says, the man who won’t work
doesn’t eat).
I believe a spirit of detachment
from the things of this world
is a healthy attitude to cultivate. Christian financial leader
Howard Dayton tells a story of
his friend, whose brand new car
received a dent. His response?
“Lord, I don’t know why you
wanted a dent in your new car,
You talk of the power of wealth but you’ve got a big one now!” I
to corrupt the heart. How uni- believe we should work hard and
versal is this predilection? be diligent, and yet remain fully
How finally is this the pattern confident that it is God, not us,
of mankind? What does this who is seated on the throne.
say about our human nature?
As beautiful as the picture of Habakkuk 3:17 – 19 seems
wealth, properly used, may be, to remind us that the getting
we find that Israel fell far short of wealth is only one thread
of living it out. This is equally in the fabric of our lives, and
true for financial and non-finan- not the most important one at
cial aspects of the law. We are that. Could you comment on
broken to our very core, and can that please?
think only of ourselves. Money Scripture speaks often about
itself is not evil; rather, as Paul money. It doesn’t tell us to try
says in 1 Timothy, it is the love and get rich. Rather, it tells us
money that is the root of all evil. to learn contentment in both the
With respect to money, humans good times and the bad! Even
have subtle, sinful tendencies when we face hardships, job
that creep in despite our best loss, uncertainty, or foreclosure,
intentions. For whatever reason, God is still our faithful Father who
we’re just not very good at han- loves us. We can rest secure in
dling wealth.
this truth regardless of our financial situation.
Only in Christ do we have hope of
salvation from our brokenness, Malachi 3:10, ‘Bring the full
financially and in all of life. It’s tithe into the storehouse, that
not about living the perfect life, there may be food in my house,
or becoming rich or adequately and thereby put me to the
generous, but ultimately it’s all test, says the Lord of Hosts,
about receiving the un-earned if I will not open the windows
gift of salvation through Christ’s of Heaven for you, and pour
perfect life.
down for you a blessing until

there is no more need.’ reads
like a kaleidoscope of joy with
the right use of wealth. How
are money and real, deep joy
associated?
P.28 Ron McKenzie, ‘The best
way to shift wealth to Heaven
is to give to the poor.’ And yet
1 Corinthians 13 says ‘Though
I give all my goods to feed the
poor and give my body to be
burned and have not love it
profits me nothi ng’. How do
we absorb these two statements?
Jesus hammers home two
things about money over and
over. First, we should share it
with the poor. Secondly, when
we are faithful with our money,
we store up rewards in heaven.
Yet, as you point out, 1 Cor 13
states that generosity devoid of
love is pointless for the giver! I
think this apparent discrepancy
is resolved by looking at what
Jesus says about the Pharisee’s giving in Matthew 23. He
criticizes their “faithful” tithing of
even their garden spices – dill
and cumin! – while they simultaneously lack justice, mercy,
and faithfulness, which Jesus
calls the “weightier matters of
the law.” Giving is critical for our
walk of faith, but the Bible makes
it clear that giving is secondary to a proper love of God and
neighbor.
P 30 refers to Jeremiah’s
‘claim that to care for the
cause of the needy is to know
God.’ This is an intimate thing
in the Biblical sense of ‘knowing’ God. What is the inference here?
The Bible makes it clear that
God personally identifies with
the poor. In fact, Scripture even