The Everyday Prayer

Re:Verse passage – Luke 16:1-18 (day seven)

You cannot serve God and ___________________.

You fill in the blank. This passage tells us that we cannot serve God and money, but we know it is not just money that becomes our master. What has become your master? Is it money, a hobby, your job/school, a person, your phone, or your schedule as a whole? What is it that competes with God for your time?

It is usually not an intentional choice to put something above God. Rather, it happens over time. It starts as a small sacrifice of God’s time in order to put something “urgent” into the top priority for that day. As we allow these “urgent” requests to pile on, God’s time seems to fall down the list of priorities. Eventually, the “urgent” becomes the master while God becomes secondary. If you do not protect your time with the Master, a new master will manifest itself in His place.

Re:Verse passage – Luke 16:1-18 (day five)

¹⁵ Then he said to them, “You like to appear righteous in public, but God knows your hearts. What this world honors is detestable in the sight of God. Luke 16:15

God hates the world’s preoccupation with the accumulation of wealth for personal gain. The reason is because the human heart can’t bend both ways; it can’t give itself to both God and money. More simply, the love of money robs the human heart of a superior treasure.

How’s your heart doing? Does it detest what God detests?

Re:Verse passage – Luke 16:1-18 (day five)

“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”  These were familiar words to the disciples. Jesus spoke them in the sermon on the mount (see Matthew 6:24).

When the gospel begins to reshape our hearts and minds, priorities and values change and shift.  Our perspective becomes more eternal than temporal. Paul describes this work of the Spirit as “becoming a new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17).  We see possessions, money, accomplishments, and wealth in a whole new way.  “Stuff” that would compete for our attention and affection for the Kingdom of God.

Here’s one of the things I love about the scriptures- its continuity and consistency. Paul shows us from his own experience and testimony, the implication and application of Jesus’ words in Luke 15. Look at Paul’s declaration in Philippians 3:7-14. (just a thumbnail- But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ.)

Wanna live like that?  Want that perspective?  Use the scriptures and listen to Jesus and learn from Paul.

Re:Verse passage – Luke 16:1-18 (day four)

“Therefore if you have not been faithful in the use of unrighteous wealth, who will entrust the true riches to you? (V.11)

We may not have great wealth and riches…the disciples certainly did not.  They probably figured Jesus was not talking to them with this parable.  He was talking to all of us though.  If we are not faithful with little, Jesus says we will not be faithful if our circumstances change and we have a lot.  Our basic character will not change just because our circumstances are different.

Extend this parable beyond money.  How have we stewarded the gospel message?  Have we invested it into the lives of others?  Or, have we held the gospel to ourselves and not been faithful to share with others?  God will hold believers accountable for the true riches they possess.  The gospel should be shared and invested .  We are stewards of God’s message of forgiveness and salvation.  Be faithful to share the good news!

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Re:Verse passage – Luke 16:1-18 (day three)

“Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries one who is divorced from a husband commits adultery.”

Establishment types thought Jesus played fast and loose with the law of Moses, as in this story whose sympathetic central character was an ethics-challenged accountant emerging not chastened but rewarded. Missing the point entirely – that believers must become as expert in the ways of the light as worldly people are expert in the ways of the dark – the Pharisees could hardly contain their disdain: Do we really want our people hearing morally questionable content from one who has such little regard for the law? Knowing the Pharisees’ own attempts to reimagine the law, Jesus responds, “Who’s the real lawbreaker, the one telling stories about wily scoundrels, or the ones trying to make marriage the domain of actual scoundrels?”

Re:Verse passage – Luke 16:1-18 (day two)

“He who is faithful in a very little thing is faithful also in much; and he who is unrighteous in a very little thing is unrighteous also in much.” vs. 10

If you’ve ever spent time in a choir rehearsal that wasn’t going particularly well, you have probably heard someone say; “this is just rehearsal, we’re saving it for the performance.” These words irritate every director I’ve ever known. That kind of “we’ll do better in performance” mentality didn’t work well in a public school classroom, and it especially doesn’t work in the classroom of faith. When we practice our praise, we worship. There is no time when we are out of audience with the Lord, and therefore never a time when he is not the object of our praise. It is the same with any resource. We must steward as God would have us to steward: money, time, people, worship.

Re:Verse passage – Luke 15:11-24 (day seven)

“I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me as one of your hired men.” vs 19

Have you ever played the game Monopoly? There is a card you can acquire called a “Get Out of Jail Free” card.  In the game, if you ever end up in jail, you can use the card to get out immediately and continue about the game. Many church attenders treat their faith like this card. Do something you think is really bad? It’s okay, God will forgive you. God’s love has become their “Get Out of Hell Free” card.

Living like that, are you fully appreciating the love of the Father? If you knew His love, you could not just shrug off your sin and go about your life. If you knew His love, sin would break you. What I appreciate most from the parable is that the prodigal is willing to indenture himself as a slave in his father’s household. He wasn’t expecting a “Free” card back to the life he had. He recognized something many of us miss: when you know the love of the Father, you will do anything you can to be near His love.

Re:Verse passage – Luke 15:11-24 (day six)

When Israel was a child, I loved him,  and I called my son out of Egypt.-God, Hosea 11:1

Both sons were prodigals. One son squandered his inheritance, only to return after he hit rock bottom, the second had forgotten what it meant to be a son altogether.

Jesus told this beloved parable to remind the religious leaders of what it means to be a son. They had exchanged the covenant relationship with God for something he never intended. Rather than sons, they had become slaves to their own self-righteousness.

Jesus beckons them, “Why live as a slave, when I have called you to be my son.”

Re:Verse passage – Luke 15:11-24 (day five)

“I will get up and go to my father, and will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in your sight;” 

Everything had gone wrong for the prodigal son. Money gone. Famine came. Limited work and food. It got him thinking about what he truly missed and what he truly needed. He missed the meals, the standing he had in the community and at his house. But what he needed, was the love and care that came from his father. It’s significant (I think) that Jesus does not say the prodigal desired to go back to the village or to his home (to get back what he missed). Rather he had resolved to find and talk to his father. The prodigal’s greatest concern was a right relationship with his father (what he needed). You can hear it in the speech he prepared to give. How he hoped for a relationship with his father. And we know from this parable, that immediately the relationship was made right.  And we know from the scriptures it can be for us too, with our Heavenly Father!!
Romans 10:13, 1 John 1:8-9