If you live in America, then you are blessed. Despite the many challenges our country faces with systemic racism, political divide, addiction, pandemic, etc., God has blessed you. Americans have more stuff and make more money than the rest of the world, yet we are unhappy, overweight, fearful, and angry. Our property and our money have become our masters, and the crazy part about it all is that most of us don’t even realize it. We live on self-propulsion and under the delusion that it’s our stuff and our money instead of God’s. But, is it really your stuff, or does it belong to God? What if everything indeed belongs to God, and God has given you the responsibility to manage God’s stuff; God’s money, and God’s resources? If that is true, then how are you fairing so far?
Using information from the fourth fiscal quarter of 2019, the BLS claims that in that quarter, the median income for a full-time wage or salary worker weekly was $936. For a 40-hour workweek, this translates to a yearly income of approximately $48,672. This move up represents a 4% increase from the previous year.¹ If you make $48,000 a year, you are in the top 1% of all wage earners in the world. You are rich compared to the majority of people living on planet earth. Despite American being the wealthiest country in the world, Americans keep 97% of what they make.² What’s even sadder than that is that the more we make, the more we keep ourselves.
God’s double commandment is for us to love God with our entire being and to love our neighbor as ourselves. If everything belongs to God and we confess to be fully committed to living out the double commandment, then shouldn’t we be generous with everything God has placed in our care, custody, and control? Friends, you can’t serve two masters. If you believe for a moment that it’s your stuff and your money, then you are in bondage. On the other hand, if you hold to the truth that everything belongs to God and all you possess is to be used to serve God and God’s kids, you enjoy the freedom that few will ever truly experience in the world.
Ask God for the willingness to share all that you possess with whoever God places in your path. The more you give, the more you receive in the way of spiritual liberation and rewards. Aim to give away 10% and live off the other 90%. If you are already there, then give away 20% and live off of 80%. Keep striving to shift the majority of what you possess for the benefit of God’s plans, and you will live in a new and wonderful world. When you give away more than you keep, God smiles, people’s lives are changed, and you, my friend, tap into a hidden spiritual way of existence, known only to a few.
Lord, thank You for entrusting me with so much. Please help me understand that all that I possess belongs to You, including my family, money, and stuff. You ask me to glorify You by sharing all that I have, holding nothing back for myself. Please remove from this selfishness that desires to claim it all as mine and only to share it how I see fit. I want to experience freedom from the bondage of money and possessions; please grant me this request. In Your Spirit and Name, I pray these things. May Your will and not mine materialize, now and forever, Amen.
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