Handling God's Money

 Many people have a hard time handling money. It seems they are driven by their feelings and not by self-control, so that they spend far too much and fail to save enough for special needs. Then, there is the reality that God is the Source of all that we have, so if we do not honor Him by how we use His money, He will not bless us with more. I believe these two factors combine to create the problems many people have with money. Just think of the duty that was given to the Levite, Ahijah. (I Chronicles 26:20) He was in charge of the treasuries of God's temple and the treasuries of all that had been dedicated to the Lord's service. That was a huge job, taking care of a huge amount of money. How did he do it? The Bible doesn't say directly how he did it, but there are a few principles that we should all go by, and I believe Ahijah probably followed them, too.

When it comes to handling our money, we are actually handling God's money. As Christians, our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit now. Therefore, we have a similar job to what Ahijah had in his time. We are in charge of our income and other monies that are dedicated to God, so that we properly care for ourselves and for the work of the Lord. The first thing we need to do is to honor God with the firstfruits of our income. That means we give to Him first, and we do not wait to give Him something if there is money left over. Of course, this involves giving our tithe, 10% of our income, and any special offerings we are led to support. When we do this first, we are worshiping God through our giving by trusting Him to continue to supply our needs. God blesses us when we give like that. Next, we should ask God what He wants us to use our money for and not do what we want to do. God knows what is best, so if He saves to save it, we should save it. If He says to spend it, we should spend it. Then, He will bless us with more that way, too, because we become a conduit through which He can build His kingdom. Finally, we need to spend it and invest it as conservatively as possible. If we waste money today by spending too much, we may need it tomorrow. Then, when we ask God for more, He will tell us He already met that need, but we spent it on something else. See what I mean? It is not hard to handle God's money, but it takes the right mindset.

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Tomorrow, I intend to read I Chronicles 27-29 and II Chronicles 1.