Besides being an oxymoron, is financial security an asset or a hindrance to doing God’s work?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
All financial advice in America today centers around two words:<\/p>\n
portfolio—–what you’re doing with the money you’re stashing for the future?<\/p>\n
retirement—–the future when you can take it easy, eat, drink, and be merry<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Most people’s budgets are maxed out paying into their retirement accounts and insurance, and they have little or nothing left to help people in need.\u00a0 Instead of face-to-face sharing with those less fortunate, most giving and doing God’s work is relegated to church and charity budgets and taxes.\u00a0 Others do it for us.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Bible on portfolios—–<\/p>\n
“Seek the kingdom of God, and all these things will be added to you.”<\/p>\n
“Sell what you have, and give alms; provide yourselves bags which do not grow old, a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches, and moths do not corrupt.”<\/p>\n
“Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Bible on retirement—–<\/p>\n
“I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have much goods laid up for many years; take your ease, eat, drink, and be merry.’<\/p>\n
But God said to him, ‘You fool, this night your soul will be required of you; then whose shall all these things be, which you have provided?’<\/p>\n
So is he that lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Rebuttal—–<\/p>\n
But I can have both.\u00a0 If I get set financially, then I can help others more.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Really?<\/p>\n
How many people do you know who are generous when they have little, while they are focused on investing for retirement?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Bible on rebuttal—–<\/p>\n
“No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other.\u00a0 You cannot serve God and Mammon.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Mammon – the personification of riches, greed, and worldly gain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Besides being an oxymoron, is financial security an asset or a hindrance to doing God’s work? All financial advice in America today centers around two words: portfolio—–what you’re doing with the money you’re stashing for the future? retirement—–the future when you can take it easy, eat, drink, and be merry Most people’s budgets […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith_based","category-financial"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1065"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1065"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1065\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}