“And if you are untrustworthy about worldly wealth, who will trust you with the true riches of heaven?” – Luke 16:11 (New Living Translation)

Jesus is establishing a relationship between the natural and the spiritual; between money and spiritual things.

How you handle money will determine if you can handle spiritual things.

We take this money issue too lightly.  God, however, doesn’t because it determines how we will handle spiritual things.  Money is a more of a spiritual thing than we like to acknowledge.  The lack of money or the love of money will lead us further from spiritual things.  When we learn how to manage money, then we will be able to manage spiritual things.  Money is something that we think of consistently; how to obtain it and how to spend it.  When we lack money, then we worry about how to obtain it.  We take that worry to Church and instead of focusing on God, our mind is wondering how we will get money to pay off bills.  Money begins to control our way of thinking.  We think: the more we work, the more money we’ll have.  God begins to be second in our life.  The funny thing is that if we put money as number one, we’ll never really obtain it.  When we learn to manage it and put God first, then money comes as a result of us surrendering to God.  In order to obtain, you have to give.

How can we manage money?  First of all, we need to have a budget.  You need to know how much money you make and where to put it.  Where does your money go to?  Most people get paid on Friday and by Monday, they don’t have anything.  They don’t know where the money went to.  You must plan out where your money will go to.  Spend all of your money on paper before you even get it.  We have to break off the old habits.

Second, learn how to use cash instead of credit cards.  Do not get into new debt.  Pay off the debt you owe and don’t get new ones.  We don’t have to pretend we have money when we don’t.  We don’t have to get everything we see or everything that’s on sale.  The television or the movie stars don’t determine what we should buy.

When you start learning to manage money, you will learn how to manage the spiritual things.  When you learn how to manage money, you would have learned spiritual principles that will help you manage the spiritual gifts God has for you.    If you can’t manage the natural things then you cannot manage the spiritual things.

Filed under: Better Living, Devotionals by Adilson Chacón