The recent message about money and stewardship by Joe Sangl was a great challenge.  Since then, I have had conversations with friends, read more bible verses and prayed more on the subject.  I realized a couple of lessons; one particular from a friend who showed me a passage in Luke 16 that I had never noticed before.

It is an interesting story about the interaction of a rich man and his money manager.  The money manager's actions with the money were not faithful to his master. The conclusion of the story caught my attention:

10 "Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. 11 So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? 12 And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else's property, who will give you property of your own?  13 No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.  You cannot serve God and money "

It is funny how the Lord uses something simple like money as an illustration of God drawing his people to himself.  Both are a gift from God.  Further, we are thinking too highly of ourselves if we think there is something special in us to have deserved them, they are results of GRACE. 

Now let's not trick ourselves into thinking Bible is promoting class warfare and we should attack the person who has a lot or the person who has a little.  Cynics need to remember Christians in the West are wealthy compared to the rest of the world.  Rather the Lord has entrusted us with salvation, finances and unique circumstances (the jobs we work, the friends we have, the talents we have been given).  Are we using these gifts in a way that one day the Lord will say well done my good and faithful servant?