J. D. Walt: Two separate planes

I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through Him who gives me strength. Philippians 4:12-13

“There are two sets of values that live on two separate planes — one visible and the other invisible. On the visible plane we have wealth and poverty. On the invisible plane there is abundance and scarcity. A person can be financially wealthy yet be possessed by scarcity to such a degree that they might as well be in poverty. In other words, there are many rich people in the world (on the outside) who live like poor people (on the inside). To the contrary, there are many poor people in the world (on the outside) who live from an incredible place of abundance (on the inside). Wealth and poverty are the external, visible circumstances while scarcity and abundance are the internal, invisible realities. Paul gets this and gets at it in today’s text . . . Abundance has nothing to do with how much or how little we have.”

J. D. Walt in “The Sad Truth Behind So Many Rich People” posted as the Seedbed Daily Text on 25 September 2017.

Which plane, which internal, invisible reality guides your life? Is it abundance or scarcity?

Workers who think money is the answer to all their problems work really hard, often at the expense of marriage and family. These people amass large sums of money, but it is never enough. In the end, their lives exhibit poverty and scarcity.

Alternatively, workers who realize along with the Apostle Paul that it’s not about having lots of money or possessions, but about grasping that Christ is all that people need. These people reflect true richness, abundance, and generosity.

As I prepare to talk about faith and work this weekend with a large group of men at Camp Spofford, I am prayerful because I don’t know what invisible plane they are on. Regardless of what mindset they bring to camp, I want them to leave having taken hold of abundance.

How does a person grasp a life of abundance? Jesus points the way in Matthew 6:33. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

In plain terms, when we seek and submit to the reign of God in every aspect of our lives (including our work) and pursue His right way of living, the rest takes care of itself. We learn experientially that having God is having everything we need or will ever need.

This does not mean life will be easy, but it will be abundant! Remember the Apostle Paul was in chains when writing today’s text, and still was content and confident because he had Christ. And let me remind you, a beautiful byproduct of abundance is generosity, but the latter is impossible to exhibit without grasping the former.

A dispute also arose among them as to which of them was considered to be greatest. Jesus said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those who exercise authority over them call themselves Benefactors. But you are not to be like that. Instead, the greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves. Luke 22:24-26

“If we let Christ reign in our soul, we will not become authoritarian. Rather we will serve everyone. How I like that word: service! To serve my king and, through Him, all those who have been redeemed by His blood. I really wish we Christians knew how to serve, for only by serving can we know and love Christ and make Him known and loved.”

Josemaría Escrivá in Christ is Passing: Homilies by Josemaría Escrivá (New York: Scepter, 1974) 276.

This weekend I get to serve a large group of men. They are workers whom I will exhort to grow as workers for God. My call to them will not be for them to leave their occupations, whether they be school teachers, accountants, or manufacturers, but to remain in those roles as workers for God whose greatest testimony is their humble, sacrificial service.

Why do this? It is precisely what Jesus did in His day with His disciples. So their lives would exhibit generous service, His disciples had to identify and get rid of the world’s way of thinking focused on amassing great wealth, position, and power, and instead, focus on service.

Serve generously today. Go the extra mile. Don’t focus on what you can get but focus on how you can give through your role. Remember that authoritarian thinking is not becoming of followers of Christ. Empty yourself in service to others and watch Christ enrich you. Make Christ known through your life at work.

By the seventh day God had finished the work He had been doing; so on the seventh day He rested from all His work. Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it He rested from all the work of creating that He had done. Genesis 2:2-3

“The God who didn’t need to rest chose to rest after creating the universe in six days. After doing all the work He intended to do, God stopped.

I love that God just stopped working when He’d done enough. So many times I think of one more adjustment, refinement, tweak that I can do to my project or task. Or I think of my long master to-do list and know there’s more I cold do. It’s a perfectionist’s nightmare, as it’s hard to feel like anything is finished to my satisfaction.

For years I’ve lived with an underlying sense that rest needed to be earned. Only when I’d gotten everything done, and done well, could I take a break. And if I rested before I’d deemed myself “worthy,” then guilt would steal my rest.

However, rest is not earned; it is a gift. The only contingency is we must accept it as God designed it. If we twist it so it fits our definition of rest, it’s really camouflaged work.”

Glynnis Whitwer in Doing Busy Better: Enjoying God’s Gifts of Work and Rest (Grand Rapids: Revell, 2017) excerpt from chapter 5 entitled “God’s Gift of Rest.”

Jesus declared rest as a gift for us with this proclamation.

Then He said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.” Mark 2:27-28.

But we must accept it the gift made special for us by our Lord.

Today, Jenni and I are receiving the gift of rest. She’s served a group of women all weekend. I am coming off a busy season of travel. What about you? When was the last time you rested?

A generous life without rest is a life that forgets the source of refilling and refreshment.

Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Colossians 3:5

“What are we to make of Paul’s explicit comparisons of greed with idol worship in Colossians 3:5 and Ephesians 5:5? In what ways are greed and idolatry alike? Over the centuries three answers to this question have been suggested. Whereas most twentieth-century interpreters see love as the point of similarity, the Reformer Martin Luther identified trust and the Church Father Chrysostom service. Do the greedy person and the idolater love, trust and serve their money and their idols respectively? All three are in fact correct.

The Bible underscores love, trust and service as three core responses of the believer in relation to God, and faults both the idolater and the greedy person for foolishly misdirecting these same three. Both idolaters and the greedy “set their hearts” on inappropriate objects. Both “rely on,” “trust in,” and “look to” their “treasures” for protection and blessing. Both “serve” and “submit to” things that demean rather than ennoble the worshipper . . . Greed is idolatry in that, like the literal worship of idols, it represents an attack on God’s exclusive rights to human love, trust and service.

Material things can replace God in the human heart and set us on a course that is opposed to Him, even arousing His jealousy . . . Economists may recommend greed, politicians rely on it and celebrities flaunt it, but in the end like all idols money fails to deliver on its promises. If the root cause of materialism is misdirected religious impulses, then the ultimate solution is still faith in the true and living God who alone gives the security and satisfaction that each of us craves.”

Brian Rosner in “Greed as a False Religion” in the Ridley Melbourne Principal’s blog dated 12/09/13.

Largely-speaking, I have found in my stewardship teaching that there are four groups of people in the audience. Those who are slaves to debt (and overwhelmed with it), those who struggle with greed and the love of money (so they find their security in stockpiling it), those beset with both maladies (they somehow have huge amounts of debt and large retirement accounts so they are doubly enslaved), and those who are financially free (to live, give, serve, and love like Jesus). On this Lord’s day, think about where you fit in that picture.

What do you rely on, trust in, or look to for protection and blessing? Our love, trust, and service must only be directed to God. If you struggle with placing your trust in God rather than possessions, consider the gracious words of our Lord Jesus Himself in Matthew 6:19-34. After telling us not to store up treasures on earth, He reminds us “do not worry” for just as He cares for the birds and flowers, He can be trusted to care for us. And I am thankful in real-time that He is caring for my wife this weekend as she leads the women’s retreat up at Camp Spofford!

Do not worry, friends! Direct all love, trust, and service to God rather than to things or money, which fail to deliver on their promises. Thus, I echo Rosner’s conclusion, “the ultimate solution is still faith in the true and living God who alone gives the security and satisfaction that each of us craves.”

Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self? Luke 9:23-25

“In reality, although following Jesus and leaving everything go hand in hand, it is necessary first of all to follow Christ in order to be able to leave everything. Indeed, only to the extent that I follow Him, that I walk in His footsteps so as to become His disciple little by little, do I discover how cluttered my life is, how much I need to be set free. At the beginning…we are ready to make radical sacrifices. We would like to leave everything, give everything. But, very quickly, we discover that God always asks of us something that we had not thought of, sometimes even apparently insignificant things of which we are incapable of letting go.

To follow Jesus, therefore, is to embark on a veritable discovery of oneself; a discovery of all those secret attachments, those unconfessed refusals, those secret wounds. We would have liked to leave everything, we were aspiring to freedom, and here we discover, with a sort of disillusionment that can sometimes lead to despair or turn into cynicism, that we are caught in our own trap. And if we are somewhat lucid and honest with ourselves, we can dare to acknowledge that following Jesus, leaving everything for Him, is beyond our capacity…But, paradoxically, this realization of our resistance, of inability to respond to His call, is perhaps, in reality, the most precious fruit…For when we have consented to our own poverty, then God can finally begin to work within us.”

Dom Jean-Charles Nault in “Follow Me” Aleteia blog post dated 21 September 2017. Special thanks to John Stanley for alerting me to this profound reading.

Think about it! Following Jesus is about learning all the things we need to let go of so that we can experience life in Him. It takes us on a journey of discovery about ourselves. We find “those secret attachments, those unconfessed refusals, those secret wounds” that hold us back. The acknowledgement that following Jesus is “beyond our capacity” is the most beautiful proclamation because only in our humble poverty do we begin to understand life in the kingdom (cf. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” Matthew 5:3).

I am praying for Jenni today as her teaching at the women’s retreat at Camp Spofford is aimed at helping about 150 women grasp life in God more deeply.

Jesus is not trying to keep us from gaining good things. He’s giving us the most generous advice possible. We must let go of clutter to take hold of Christ. We don’t realize all the areas of our lives that are filled with clutter. If He revealed them all to us at once, it would overwhelm us. Today’s post is not a call to generosity, but rather, a call to following that precedes generosity. Father in heaven, show us what clutters our lives and hinders the generous work of your Spirit in and through us. Give us courage to leave it today and follow You. Amen.

He said: “A man of noble birth went to a distant country to have himself appointed king and then to return. So he called ten of his servants and gave them ten minas. ‘Put this money to work,’ he said, ‘until I come back.’ Luke 19:12-13

“The nobleman of course represents Jesus Himself, who went to a far country to receive a kingdom and then returned to reward His servants. The parable has obvious applications to stewardship of spiritual gifts and ministries that Jesus entrusts to us, but in order for the parable to make sense, it has to assume that good stewardship, in God’s eyes, includes expanding and multiplying whatever resources or stewardship God has entrusted to you. Surely we cannot exclude money and material possessions from the application of the parable, for they are part of what God entrusts to each of us, and our money and possessions can and should be used to glorify God.”

Wayne Grudem in Business for the Glory of God: The Bible’s Teaching on the Moral Goodness of Business (Wheaton: Crossway, 2003) 42-43.

Jenni and I flew to New England last night and arrived at the home of dear friends, Mark and Kate Whitsitt. This weekend Jenni speaks at the Women’s Retreat at Camp Spofford and I get to speak at the Men’s Retreat next weekend. She will focus on helping women breathe deeply from God’s Word to make it a rich part of their lives. My speaking will relate to the integration of faith and work. This is one of many texts that relates to my topic.

The parable of the ten minas is found in Luke 19:11-27. In summary, ten servants are given a mina, which is three months income, and instructed to put it to work. We hear the report of of three of the servants. Two servants multiply God’s resources and return them to Him while the third sits on the mina and is condemned for not putting it to work.

What about the other seven servants? I concur with many biblical scholars who think they represent the rest of us. Why was the one servant condemned? It was not for making bad financial decisions. In other words, savvy business does not win us a spot in heaven, obedience does. Knowing and doing God’s will, that is.

What’s the significance of the mina? That’s hard to pinpoint, but broadly, it represents what a servant needs to get to work and be fruitful. Jenni and I live on a float of three months income and store up the rest in heaven. We have found that a mina represents sufficient resources for living fruitfully, while maintaining a posture of dependence on God.

How do we apply the lesson of this parable in our lives? God made us to work, to be fruitful, and return the fruit of our labor to Him. It’s not ours. We can’t sit on our hands or on the money God has entrusted to us. By putting ourselves and God’s resources to work and returning the fruit of our labor to Him, we show our obedience and show others how to live.

So I saw that there is nothing better for a person than to enjoy their work, because that is their lot. For who can bring them to see what will happen after them? Ecclesiastes 3:22

“A challenge for all of us is to balance work and family. That challenge has intensified in recent years. Not only have work demands increased (especially with the relentless squeeze on profit margins and corporate downsizing), but also spouses and children have greater commitments and involvements. It is difficult even to find time together…Today we can look back and see tremendous fruit from our investment in family. I’m so glad God helped us take this stewardship responsibility so seriously.”

John D. Beckett in Mastering Monday: A Guide to Integrating Faith and Work (Downers Grove: IVP, 2006) 170-172.

Recently I was talking with an oppressed worker who was expected to sacrifice his young family to excel at work. I reminded him, along the lines of today’s Scripture verse, that it is a blessing to enjoy our work (which is not the case on many days) and that each of us will die before all our work is done. I urged him to work for God’s glory, to love his family, friends and neighbors, and to keep work in perspective, lest he lose everything to gain anything at work.

Beckett, a well-known businessman in the town where I was born, Elyria, Ohio, suggests that finding time to say Yes to generously invest in the most important things in life only happens when we learn to say No to things of lesser importance. As a constant reminder, he has this sign posted in his office. It’s called “In Praise of No.”

“No may be the most efficient time saver in the English language. What it lacks in grace is more than offset by its brevity. You don’t equivocate when you say No, though you may risk offense. Used with discretion and appropriate garnishes, No can save you hours of time. No returns responsibility to its rightful owner. No enables you to focus on your priorities. No protects you from your own good heart. Do not scorn the pungent clarity of No. It can be your ticket to success.”

The part about No protecting you from your own good heart especially struck me. That’s a battle for generous people, who like to say Yes to everything.

Father in heaven, help us all say No to things of lesser importance so we can say Yes to what is best in the days you have given us on this earth, knowing we will die before we get everything done. From this day forward, grant us wisdom to prioritize our stewardship responsibilities by your Holy Spirit for the sake of our relationship with You, our family, our friends and neighbors. In your mercy, hear our prayer we ask in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Those who work their land will have abundant food, but those who chase fantasies have no sense. Proverbs 12:11

“Barbara and I have had to say this to our kids and grandkids: “We love you dearly. Part of that love is to arrange things so you get only what you earn by working. We’re going to give you something greater than wealth, which is opportunity. You are most welcome to work at Hobby Lobby if you wish, provided you do a good job like anyone else. Then you can enjoy the fruit of your labor. But the ownership of this company is a whole different matter…”

David Green with Bill High in Giving It All Away…And Getting it All Back Again: The Way of Living Generously (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2017) 110.

God designed each of us to work. One of the gifts we can give our children is to teach them to work and help provide them with opportunities to work. It’s “something greater than wealth” and something we can give them regardless of whether or not we operate a business, which along with everything else, is owned by God.

When our son and daughter, Sammy and Sophie, each turned fourteen, we told them that they either needed to do work they loved or say “my pleasure” when they handed a person their Chick-Fil-A. It was time for them to get to work! Sammy started Sammy’s Fly Shop and Sophie cared for peoples’ pets along with babysitting.

Looking back, that was one of the greatest gifts we gave them. Instead of getting everything as an entitlement, they learned the value of hard work, which has benefited them in other areas of life. What about your kids and grandkids? Give them something greater than wealth. Teach them to earn an income from work.

“Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom.” Luke 12:32

“Scripture employs many different images when speaking about generosity and giving, but traditional financial ministries focus almost exclusively on one — the steward. They emphasize God’s ownership of everything and our stewardship of His property.

This idea is solidly biblical and helpful. We wonder if this metaphor is popular because it fits with the business mindset and good management principles that have come to dominate contemporary ministry culture. If we view the church as a factory, then the metaphor of managers makes perfect sense.

While acknowledging the usefulness of stewardship language, Whole-Life Generosity focuses on the more intimate language of God as Provider. He ensures that we have all that we need (2 Corinthians 9:8). He is our generous Father in heaven who provides for His children every good thing (James 1:17) and gives us our daily bread (Matthew 6:11).

Viewing God as the Provider, and not just the Owner, fundamentally changes how we view ourselves and our relationship to God. Rather than fearful stewards who must give an account for how we’ve managed God’s property, we can see ourselves as grateful recipients of God’s blessings, called to share everything with others. It exchanges the sterile owner-employee relationship for the more intimate father-child relationship emphasized by Jesus Himself.”

Sharon Epps with Skye Jethani, Patrick Johnson, and Amy Sherman in “Generosity Reset: From Fundraising to Disciple-Making in the Local Church” a free ebook from Generous Church (10). This is one of many Generous Church resources I commend to meditations readers as well as my students.

In championing “Whole-Life Generosity” to churches, Epps (and company) help recover the biblical view of God that surrounds faithful stewardship with His fatherly love and provision. God not only owns everything but provides richly and cares for us as a loving Father.

In addition to each of us having to give an account for everything entrusted to us, Epps (and company) are rightly emphasizing that obedient stewardship, when viewed in light of God’s rich provision, is no longer frozen by fear, but instead, flows and even overflows from a deep well of faith and gratitude.

My family has personally found this to be true! For example, many people ignore the critical teaching of Jesus to not store up treasures on earth (Matthew 6:19). Why? They hold on to money in fear thinking they will end up empty because they are forgetting who provides all things richly. Fear locks them up. It locked us up for years.

When we instead focus by faith on what is true, that God is our loving Father who provides everything we need, and has given us the kingdom, we stop clinging to money. Only then do we fully and experientially learn how faithful God is and how lovingly He provides.

Don’t be afraid any longer! Disciples are free of fear, because they have taken hold of life in the kingdom.

But since you excel in everything — in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in complete earnestness and in the love we have kindled in you — see that you also excel in this grace of giving. 2 Corinthians 8:7

“A pastor friend from Singapore once told me that during the remarkable growth among Christians there in the 1980s, his church taught new converts four things within four weeks of discipling: how to read the Bible, how to pray, how to share their new faith, and how to give. Generous giving was seen as integral to biblical discipleship, and so it was taught from the very beginning. Generosity is of course a response to grace and an overflow of gratitude.”

Christopher J. H. Wright in Christ-Centered Generosity: Global Perspectives on the Biblical Call to a Generous Life (Colbert: Kingdom Life Publishing).

As a cohort of Asian Theological Seminary students works through my Faith and Finances onlinecourse over the next five weeks, pray with me that God fills their hearts with grace and gratitude. Today’s post seems fitting as one student is from Singapore. What about your church? Some emphasize tithing from the law so giving feels like a tax. Don’t do that, as it steals everyone’s joy and actually squelches generosity. Celebrate with gratitude and make grace-filled giving integral to biblical discipleship.