Mo Money, Mo Problems – Money: Part 3 of 4

I don't know what, they want from me
It's like the more money we come across
The more problems we see
What's going on?
What's going on?
I don't know what, they want from me
It's like the more money we come across
The more problems we see

Artist – The Notorious B.I.G feat. Mase and Puff Daddy
Song – Mo Money, Mo Problems
Album – Life After Death
Year –1997

____________

Stewardship, hard work, diligence, is SECONDARY to gift. Gift comes first. Life itself is a divine gift, a divine handout. The way each of us is uniquely woven together, our time and place in history, our skills and talents and abilities – undeveloped as they might initially be – is the first leg up we receive.

There is no such thing as a self-made man, a self-made millionarie. 

__________

This is part 3 of 4 in a brief series of posts on money. 

Part 1, Living in Beverly Hills, can be read here.
Part 2, Money, That’s What I Want, can be read here. (Please note that discretion is required in this post due to some of the language at one point).

A summary of the posts so far can be read in the italics below. Feel free to skip if you’ve read part 1 and part 2.

Blessing is God’s desire for humanity to live a flourishing, whole and right life. Secondly, blessing is God’s good work of creation that brings into existence the context and conditions needed for a blessed life. Thirdly, blessing is God’s faithful and ongoing work in our world to bring about blessing even though we are not always faithful. The devil, sin, our own hardness of heart and poor choices continually conspires against us and leads us into all sorts of destructive places, life is often a mess; anything but flourishing, whole or right. We rightly perceive that things have “gone wrong.” The climax of God’s faithfulness is God’s willingness to step right into our mess through Jesus Christ. Jesus brings grace and forgiveness, healing and reconciliation to God. This is where true blessing is found (Romans 4:7) and though we may only taste elements of a “blessed” life on this side of eternity, God’s Holy Spirit is a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. God in Jesus is setting the world right.

While there is an economic element to blessing; there is far more to a blessed life than what can be measured in economic terms. Sleeping soundly, laughing loudly, loving deeply, sharing bread and wine, living in wide-eyed wonder and in right relationship with God, self, others and creation all reflect a blessed life. To think of blessing only in economic terms is an impoverished view of blessing that has been high jacked by Western materialism and consumerism. Unchecked this view soon concludes that the source of a blessed life is money rather than God. Money equates to power and control and thus supposedly, enough money will mean power over and control of one’s life. We either become our own false god (with a false sense of power, authority and control), or, money becomes our false god offering false promises of a blessed life.

As Christ followers our call is not to attain power and control but to relinquish it, after all, “it is no longer I that lives but Christ that lives in me.” This does not mean that we become careless with money, rather we are to be careful with money. But, it is always a fine line between striving for power and control (the love of money) and the careful stewarding of resource (faithfulness with money). Gandalf, in The Lord of the Rings refuses to accept the ring of power from Frodo; “Don’t tempt me Frodo! I dare not take it. Not even to keep it safe. Understand, Frodo. I would use this ring from a desire to do good… but through me, it would wield a power to great and terrible to imagine.” In our world money has the potential to work like the Ring of Power, as much as it can do good, it has the potential to corrupt.

It is always a fine line between striving for power and control (the love of money) and the careful stewarding of resource (faithfulness with money).

Part 3 now follows…

Deuteronomy 8:6-9
Observe the commands of the Lord your God, walking in obedience to him and revering him. For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land—a land with brooks, streams, and deep springs gushing out into the valleys and hills; a land with wheat and barley, vines and fig trees, pomegranates, olive oil and honey; a land where bread will not be scarce and you will lack nothing; a land where the rocks are iron and you can dig copper out of the hills.

In other words, a land of plenty, of abundance, of resource and opportunity and potential.

It’s not too hard to draw a lose analogy and see that in a similar way New Zealand is a land of plenty. We’re blessed to live in New Zealand. We’ve education, health care, law and order, democratic government, employment laws, banks that can be trusted, infrastructure, oceans, farms, forests, lakes, mountains, bio-diversity. We’re blessed.

The medium household income in New Zealand is $47,100. That income puts Kiwis in the wealthiest 4.5% of people in the world. We’re better off than 6.3 billion people. We should celebrate this. Thank God for this. We’ve landed here. Of all the places in the world. Thank you Jesus. 

Deuteronomy 8:10-17
When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the Lord your God for the good land he has given you. Be careful that you do not forget the Lord your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day. Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. He led you through the vast and dreadful wilderness, that thirsty and waterless land, with its venomous snakes and scorpions. He brought you water out of hard rock. He gave you manna to eat in the wilderness, something your ancestors had never known, to humble and test you so that in the end it might go well with you. You may say to yourself, “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.”

Despite being written to Israel hundreds of years ago, the advice is sound for us today. How easily we fall into the same trap. How quick we are to assume that what we have is primarily a result of all our hard work, all our effort, the power and strength of our hands. Or because of our intelligence and sharp minds.

Our culture celebrates the idea that someone might be a “self-made man” or a “self-made millionaire.” Nobody gave that person a leg up or a hand out. Legend! More people should be like they are!

Deuteronomy 8:18
But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your ancestors, as it is today.

In amongst all that follows, this is key:

Stewardship, hard work, diligence, is SECONDARY to gift. Gift comes first. Life itself is a divine gift, a divine handout. The way each of us is uniquely woven together, our time and place in history, our skills and talents and abilities – undeveloped as they might initially be – is the first leg up we receive.

Stewardship, good, bad or indifferent follows from gift.

The New Testament puts it like this in Acts 17:24-28…

“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’

We are each recipients of the gift of life.
Easy to say, “no I’m a result of biology.”
Sure, but God was the one that created and invented biology.
We’re just stewards of God’s great creation.
We are his off spring.
In him we live and move and have our being.
He marked out our appointed times in history and the boundaries of our lands.
In him each of us is fearfully and wonderfully and uniquely put together.
The recipients of his great gift that is life.

Gift comes first. Stewardship comes second.

We should note here that the gift is not quite the same from person to person.

The gift is life. The gift is a fearfully and wonderfully made human being. But man is there variety!

We’re all put together differently. We’ve all different skills and talents and abilities and temperaments and families of origin and ethnicities and passions and intellectual abilities and emotional sensitivities.

The starting point, from one person to the next, is infinitely varied. And it’s not all equal opportunity! Depending on what the goal, or a particular goal is, some have advantage and some are at a disadvantage.

- If the goal is to slam dunk a 10ft hoop by the age of 17 – well, hard luck short people.

- If the goal is to have a PhD by the time you are 27 – well, hard luck those not so intellectually inclined.
- If the goal is to be a millionaire by the time you are 37 – well, hard luck to you if you’re not business minded, a professional sports person, a rock star or one of the few that win Lotto.

Depending on where you set the finish line, for some it becomes a 100 m sprint, while for others it is 10,000 miles away. This is why we celebrate different achievements in different ways. We recognise the race isn’t even.

Thus in all things, we live in humility trusting that when Jesus returns, he’ll return with grace, and that God in all things will judge impartially.

1 Peter 1:13 and 17

Therefore, with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming…  Since you call on a Father who judges each person’s work impartially, live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear.

So gift comes before stewardship. 

The gift is life, it is the opportunity to know faith, hope and love. 

There is huge variety though.

Of course, our world sets all sorts of different benchmarks in terms of what it means to live the good life, to be successful, to be an achiever, to fit in or to stand out. These benchmarks become cruel task masters though. Especially when we remember that life’s not equal opportunity and that every person has a different starting point.

Sadly though, these become the ways we measure ourselves and compare ourselves to others and comparison has a tendency to ruin people’s lives.

Rather, in humility, we should simply seek to run our own race, to be faithful with what God has given us, and called us to do.

There is no need to compare with others, get one over others, look down on others or be intimidated by others.

Ok, let’s try and land this back at money. Considering this is supposedly a series on money, I’ve not talked about money much!

Have a look at the following diagram…

Money flows into our lives from three potential income streams, investments we might have, a business we own and perhaps work in, or the work we do as someone employed or self-employed person.

((We’re blessed as well to live in a nation were different benefits are also available for people from time to time, in different seasons and for different reasons. But that’s a different subject at the moment)).

((You could also argue that loans are a source of income and also gifts from others too. We’ll keep it simple and just focus on these ones though)).  

Money flows in of course. But money also flows out. Sometimes it feels like it leaks out, like it just evaporates.

Money doesn’t evaporate though. It flows in five particular directions.  

Contributing
Giving
Investing
Saving
Spending

As Christ followers, stewardship is how we navigate and order this kind of diagram, how we monitor the flow of our money.

  

We can be careless with our money – poor stewardship.

We can obsess over money, striving for more money (power and control) – poor stewardship.

We can manage the flow of our money faithfully and open to God’s leading – good stewardship.

All of us should seek to develop at least a basic level of health in terms of money management. Living within our means, not getting into debt, working out how to be generous; those kinds of things.

Just like we should all seek to cultivate a basic level of physical health in life.

Some people, of course, are more inclined than others to take their physical fitness to whole different levels. Run marathons, hit the gym, sculpt the deltoids. Nothing wrong with this. For some it brings a great sense of reward, of fulfilment, it’s a passion. Eric Liddle famously said, “I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast. And when I run I feel his pleasure!”

It just needs to be kept in check. Family commitments, obsessive compulsive nature, vanity, diet, other responsibilities fall to the side.

It’s like that in terms of money management for some people. Some will be more inclined than others to make the system hum rather to simply let it be healthy. Some people will be wired to make it really hum, it will come naturally to them.

This is ok too; but also needs to be kept in check. It is easy to become greedy, a lover of money, a compulsive risk take, etc. There are all sorts of ways that our money management can get out of check.

This is why we should always remember… the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your ancestors, as it is today.

These three income streams, investment, business, employment are developed through the leveraging of the gifts that God has given us.

Relationships

Passion
Capital
Skills
Intellect
Time
Nurture

We weren’t all dealt the same cards though.

Each of us us wired with different passions, intellectual abilities, and temperaments. Each of us grew up in different homes that encouraged different degrees of risk taking, championed different values and nurtured each of us in different directions. 

As a result some people were drawn to business, others to professional services such as medicine or law. Some wanted to be school teachers for as long as they could remember. Others determined to work in churches or not-for-profit organisations. Some became builders working for others. Some became builders working for themselves. Some became builders and employed other builders to work for them. 

The financial return varies greatly from case to case. Each person also ends up carrying different pressures and responsibilities in life. Each person ends up with a different amount of money flowing into their life. This shouldn't be a surprise.

Next time... 

How to make more money.
How to manage the money you have.
Tithing - what the heck! 

Money, That’s What I Want – Money: Part 2 of 4

Some reader/viewer discretion is advised in some of what follows. There are a few f-bombs. They are not intended to offend but rather to make a particular point. I think with great clarity. Peace. 

The best things in life are free
But you can keep them for the birds and bees
Now give me money
That's what I want
That's what I want, yeah
That's what I want

You're lovin' gives me a thrill
But you're lovin' don't pay my bills
Now give me money
That's what I want
That's what I want, yeah
That's what I want

Money don't get everything it's true
What it don't get, I can't use
Now give me money
That's what I want
That's what I want, yeah
That's what I want, wah

Well now give me money
A lot of money
Wow, yeah, I wanna be free
Oh I want money
That's what I want
That's what I want, well
Now give me money
A lot of money
Wow, yeah, you need money
Now, give me money
That's what I want, yeah
That's what I want

Artist – The Beatles

Song – Money (That’s What I Want)
Album – With the Beatles
Year –1963

______________________

"You get up two and a half million dollars, any asshole in the world knows what to do: you get a house with a 25 year roof, an indestructible Jap-economy shit box, you put the rest into the system at three to five percent to pay your taxes and that's your base, get me? That's your fortress of f-ing solitude. That puts you, for the rest of your life, at a level of f-you. Somebody wants you to do something, f-you. Boss pisses you off, f-you! A wise man's life is based around f-you."

Frank – The Gambler (2014 movie)

Truthfully, something of an “f-you” attitude is buried away within most of us. For some quite deeply. For other just below the surface. Humans have forever sought to be the lords and masters of their own lives. Humanity grabbed the apple in the garden and said, “we’ll be our own gods.” We still do it today in our lust for power and control, in our desire to be "free."

 ______________________

Blessing is God’s desire for humanity – that we’d experience a flourishing, whole and right life. Part one unpacks this here. There is an economic component to blessing, but blessing goes beyond economics. It’s a quality of life, a quality of relationship with God and others, it is wholeness in oneself, non-anxious living, a sound sleep, laughter, the giving and receiving of hospitality, breaking bread, drinking wine, friendship.  

Blessing is also God’s loving initiative in creating the conditions in which this sort of life is possible, a blessed life. God’s ongoing desire and ongoing initiative in the human story is in order that humanity might come into fullness of life, wholeness of life, a blessed life.

God works within history to bring about blessing.

Sometimes though, our lives don’t feel all that blessed. Then what? In God we trust? What do we put our trust in? For many people the temptation is to “hedge-their-bets.”

It’s not only in the horse racing industry that we find people hedging their bets. Common practice in the Ancient Near East of the Old Testament and the Grecco-Roman world of the New Testament was essentially to hedge your bets, to have a little both ways. You’d have your own god or handful of gods; Asherah or Baal, or later Zeus and Apollo, and you’d worship them, you’d sacrifice to them, pray to them, burn incense in their name, carry a little image of them with you to protect you.

But, you’d also hedge your bets. If there were other powerful nations nearby, or powerful people next door, then those nations or people obviously have pretty powerful gods. You’d find out who their gods were – maybe Dagon, Tiamat, Moloch, Ra, Set, Horus, Poseidon, Jupitar or Mars – and you’d make sure you had them in your pocket too. You’d sacrifice to and honour these gods as well.

This was problematic for Jews and Christians. The decree of Yahweh, the creator of the universe, of the heavens and the earth, the God of Israel, Isaac and Jacob was that Yahweh alone was to be worshiped. You weren’t to hedge your bets with God, you were to worship him alone.

Exodus 20:2-6

“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God.

God alone is the source of life, the one who desires blessing and brings about blessing, the one who leads you out of slavery and into fullness of life – a blessed life. God alone is sovereign in the universe.

The New Testament puts it like this…

Acts 17:24-28

“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’

It is God alone who sustains the world, who holds things together, who makes life, well - the miracle that life is.

We’re too used to life though. It is too everyday ordinary. We forget that this life, in and of itself, is a miracle; a gift from God. There is nothing ordinary about it.

With life a gift from God, our trust in life, is to be in God alone. We’re not to hedge our bets.

This isn’t always easy. Throughout the Old Testament, Israel is continually being rebuked for hedging their bets, for worshiping multiple gods, for making sure they had them all on their side. The bible doesn’t call what Israel is doing “hedging one’s bets” though. The bible refers to Israel’s unfaithfulness as adultery, as fornication, as playing the harlot. Pretty strong language!

In our modern context, not many of us are tempted to cry out to Baal or Jupitar when things around us are a little stormy. Not many of us call on Asherah or Apollo to aid us in our attempts to live the good life. We don’t try to hedge our bets by currying favour with Horus.  

We have a tendency to put our trust in other things, we hedge our bets in other ways. The sweat of our brow, hard work, self-reliance, knuckling down. Our own ability to sort our own life out. Or at the other end of the scale, Lotto, a big win, a quick fix, an rich inheritance coming from Nigeria. We hope we’ll get lucky. Perhaps our trust is in education, science, human evolution, the good will and social conscience of society.

Most commonly, our trust is in money.

Our trust is in our assets, our wealth, our possessions. We trust these things (in case God lets us down) to be the source of the good life, of blessing, of security, of happiness, of contentment, of well being. Our path to freedom. 

Ultimately though, money becomes its own false god. We end up worshiping money, putting our trust in money, and looking to money as the source of true life. We’re still faithful Christians of course, we’re just hedging out bets. That’s wisdom isn’t it? No. The bible calls it playing the harlot.  

Have a look at these passages, try and duck them if you can.

1 Timothy 6:6-10

But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.

James 4:13-16

Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil. 

Hebrew 13:5-6

Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” So we say with confidence, “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me?”

The Lord is your helper. Not money. 

Mostly our issue in regard to the love of money isn’t that we love rolls of cash or huge vaults of gold coins to dive into and swim around in like Scrooge McDuck dies in Duck Tails.

The issue is to do with power and control. Money represents power and control in our world.

If you have money you have options, you have choices, you are empowered, you can look after yourself, you don’t have to rely on anyone, you have freedom, no one can tell you what to do, when to do it, or how to do it. You are self-sufficient! You are in charge! The more money you have the more power and control you have.

There is a scene in the 2014 movie The Gambler that highlights this perfectly. Mark Wahlberg plays Jim Bennet, and English Professor and high-stakes gambler. John Goodman plays Frank, a kind of underworld, gambling kingpin. It is full of f-bombs (so viewer discretion is advised if you chose to watch the clip). Jim has got himself into trouble despite once having been $2.5 million up. Frank can’t believe that Jim - when he was up – didn’t use that money to put him in an “f-you!” place of financial security for the rest of his life. A position where he could live as lord and king of his own life – at the beck and call of no-one. 

Jim: I've been up two and a half million dollars.
Frank: What you got on you?
Jim: Nothing.
Frank: What you put away?
Jim: Nothing.
Frank: You get up two and a half million dollars, any asshole in the world knows what to do: you get a house with a 25 year roof, an indestructible Jap-economy shit box, you put the rest into the system at three to five percent to pay your taxes and that's your base, get me? That's your fortress of f-ing solitude. That puts you, for the rest of your life, at a level of f-you. Somebody wants you to do something, f-you. Boss pisses you off, f-you! Own your house. Have a couple bucks in the bank. Don't drink. That's all I have to say to anybody on any social level. Did your grandfather take risks?
Jim: Yes.
Frank: I guarantee he did it from a position of f-you. A wise man's life is based around f-you. The United States of America is based on f-you. You're a king? You have an army? Greatest navy in the history of the world? F-you!

Now, you might not like the language, it might not be something you’d say, or an attitude that you’d like to admit exists beneath the surface in your life. Maybe you prefer the softer imagery seen in movies where the character wins lotto, walks into the office, tells everyone what he/she really thinks of them and then walks out with a smile on his/her face, (see James McAvoy as Wesley in the 2008 movie Wanted). It’s the same thing though.

And our world craves the idea of finding oneself in such a position. 

Truthfully, something of an “f-you” attituded is buried away within most of us. For some quite deeply. For other just below the surface.

Humans have forever sought to be the lords and masters of their own lives. Humanity grabbed the apple in the garden and said, “we’ll be our own gods.” We still do it today in our lust for power and control, in our desire to be free.

And, more often than not, money is seen as the means by which one will find freedom.

This isn’t the freedom Christ calls us into though.

Following Christ, living the life of a disciple, it isn’t a life of power and control. To follow Christ is to explicitly acknowledge that we are not the lords, kings or masters of our own lives. It is to secede all of our lives and everything in our lives to Christ. We’re not called to be a false god sovereign over our own life.

Take these passages scattered throughout the New Testament…

Your life is not your own, it has been bought with a price.
It is no longer I that lives but Christ that lives in me.
Take up your cross and follow Jesus.
Present your bodies as living sacrifices.
If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it.
For the sake of those with a weaker conscience, don’t always engage in the freedom you have. 

What's hopeless is that too many Christians live life hoping to one day find themselves in an "f-you" position. This is the very antithesis of what it means to be a Christian! (I apologies for the crass terminology, but i think it makes the point with great clarity). For many, serving two masters, God and mammon is too watered down for it to really sink in though.   

Now, granted that we are to steward our lives, we’re left having to negotiate a pretty finely balanced reality. It is a fine line between faithfully stewarding that which God has graced us with and striving for power and control. Just take the following list of words – stewardship, hording, wisdom, fear, sound planning, playing the harlot, hard work, control, faithfulness, slavery, fruitfulness, trusting, false god, resource, freedom, diligence, security, comfort, power, sacrifice, worry, anxiety, trust – it is so easy to get these things mixed up. Rightly sorted one minute, but all mixed up the next. 

It’s a fine line sometimes.

In Lord of the Rings, Frodo, offered Gandalf the ring of power, offered Gandalf power and control. Gandalf replied… “Don't... tempt me Frodo! I dare not take it. Not even to keep it safe. Understand, Frodo. I would use this ring from a desire to do good... But through me, it would wield a power too great and terrible to imagine.”

Money is like that. “Oh this is just a resource, I’m just a steward. I’m just a channel for God, blessed to be a blessing, building my portfolio in order to do some great good in the world.” It is easy to have the best intentions, the desire to do good, but money is sneaky. Your desire is to do good but you can easily end up searching for power and control – failing to see that you are actually now powerless and being controlled.

It sets you work hours. It sets your calendar. It sets your priorities. It sets your values. It sets the yard stick by which you measure your life, your status, your success. It can easily frame your life more than you allow God to frame your life. More than anything frames your life.

So, the good life. A blessed life. A flourishing, whole and right life, it is God’s will for you but it is found in Jesus, not in your bank balance. We discover a blessed life as we follow Jesus, as we walk a long obedience in the right direction, we find ever increasing measures of wholeness. Life still happens of course, following Jesus offers no immunity card to the heartache that life offers at times – though there is always hope.

To think that following Jesus might somehow be a fast track to millionaire is hopelessly misguided. To follow Jesus is to determine that he’ll forever be Lord and King in your life.

The Bible offers no scheme through which to get rich and instead wisdom and guidance to ensure that money is removed from any position as lord in your life.

What is even more mixed up is the way in which we long to be in a position of total control in our lives and hope that the Bible, that following Jesus, that God might help us get to there. Financially or otherwise. To follow Jesus is to submit our lives to his lordship and authority of all things.

Too easily we're deceived into thinking that money will save us and free us in life. We end up chasing, and fantasizing, and organizing our lives in the pursuit of the power and control that money brings. It’s a false god and we’re playing the harlot, we’re unfaithful. God’s will is no longer framing our life. He wants you to have a blessed life but it is found in him, not in money, or anything else.  

Now the challenge in all of this is to discover what it means to live as careful and wise stewards. Money is a front-and-centre reality of life. We’re not to be careless with money, nor pretend it isn’t an important reality.

Next time. 

Livin’ in Beverly Hills, That’s Where I Want to Be – Money: Part 1 of 4

Where I come from isn't all that great
My automobile is a piece of crap
My fashion sense is a little whack
And my friends are just as screwy as me

I didn't go to boarding schools
Preppie girls never looked at me
Why should they?
I ain't nobody, got nothing in my pocket

Beverly Hills, that's where I want to be
Livin' in Beverly Hills
Beverly Hills, rolling like a celebrity
Livin' in Beverly Hills

Look at all those movie stars
They're all so beautiful and clean
When the housemaids scrub the floors
They get the spaces in between

I want to live a life like that
I want to be just like a king
Take my picture by the pool
'Cause I'm the next big thing

Beverly Hills, that's where I want to be
Livin' in Beverly Hills
Beverly Hills, rolling like a celebrity
Livin' in…

Artist – Weezer
Song – Beverly Hills
Album – Make Believe
Year –2005

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For those who could not yet see prosperity in their own lives, patience became the highest virtue. “Patience! The power twin of faith!” exclaimed Kenneth Copeland.

Kate Bowler – Blessed; A History of the American Prosperity Gospel

“Lol” said I.

Me – when reading above Kenneth Copeland quote in Bowler’s Blessed

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Money: Part 1 of 4

What does it mean to have a “blessed” life? When the Bible talks of “blessing” what is it talking about? Livin’ in Beverly Hills, rolling like a celebrity? Or something else?

Genesis 1:27-28

So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

It is in the book of Genesis that we first encounter the Biblical idea of blessing or of being blessed. Essentially blessing or to be blessed refers to God’s desire for humanity to experience life as a flourishing, whole and right reality. Blessing and blessed also refers to God’s initiative in creating the conditions in which this kind of life is possible.

Though God (Father, Son and Spirit) exits perfectly content as God, Trinitarian love overflows and desires always to invite and include “others” in loving relationship. Out of love God creates humankind in order that they might participate in God’s love, not as God, but as God’s image bearers, unique in all of creation.

We should thus understand flourishing, whole and right as follows...

Flourishing – To be fruitful in life, helping to contribute to and ordered creation. To steward and tend to the planet. To produce food, goods and services that provided for one another and make the world even more beautiful. To invent and order, and to continue God’s good work of creation. To have found good work for one's own hands and joy in one's work. To have ready access to the necessities of life.
Whole – To be in a close and healthy relationship with God, self, others and creation.
Right – To live in right step with God’s order of things, in line with God’s way, truth and life. The way of justice, righteousness, mercy, generosity and peace. 

To be blessed is thus to be flourishing, to be whole, and to live in right step with God.

Alternatively, it is to receive something that is a catalyst towards a flourishing, whole or right life.

With this in mind, we see in Deuteronomy the way in which life is used as shorthand for blessing and blessing as shorthand for life. While at the same time death is shorthand for cursing and cursing is shorthand for death.

Deuteronomy 30:19-20

This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him.

Unfortunately, humankind chose death and cursing pretty early on in the piece rather than life and blessing. Rather than live ‘right’ or in ‘right step’ with God’s order of things, humankind chose to do its own thing and sin and death enters the story, things break down; we’re out of step.

And yet God is faithful even when humanity isn’t and works continually that people would be blessed and know life as God intended life to be.

God offers life and blesses Noah and his decedents. God declares he’ll maintain the conditions needed for life to carry on and blesses humanity once again.

Genesis 8:22 – 9:1

“As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.” Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth.”

Later on, in order that people might come to know true life, flourishing, whole and right life, God calls Abram and his decedents, promising a special blessing which again, though in different words, speaks of fruitful increase and flourishing.

Genesis 12:1-3

The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you. "I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”

And of course, if you are familiar with the biblical narrative, you know that in this passage we’ve hints of Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God who will give his life in order that humankind would find true life.

Thus this promise of blessing culminates in Jesus Christ and his life as articulated in the gospel narratives and, in a manner helpful to this discussion, in Romans 4. Remember that blessed is shorthand for a flourishing, whole and right life.

Romans 4:7-8

“Blessed are those
    whose transgressions are forgiven,
    whose sins are covered.Blessed is the one
    whose sin the Lord will never count against them.”

You’re on your way to true life, a flourishing, whole and right life – you’re blessed – when you find grace and reconciliation and forgiveness of sins in Jesus Christ.

We see this in John 10 as well.

John 10:10
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

Jesus came that you might be blessed, that you might find true life, and that you might come into right relationship with God and from here into right relationship with self, others and the rest of creation and into a flourishing, whole and right life. A blessed life. 

In this age, we’ll only ever experience this in part. We’ll all face highs and lows, have victories and defeats, know health and sickness, provision and lack at times. While in the age to come this will be known in full.  

In saying that though, as we follow Jesus, as we continue a long obedience in the right direction, we do discover increasing measures of wholeness, we do flourish in new and unexpected ways. We discover Godly wisdom that does serve as a catalyst towards blessing though not as an immunity card that protects us from the heartache and pain of life.

Psalm 1 is a fine example of the blessing that God’s wisdom brings.

Psalm 1:1-6

Blessed is the one
    who does not walk in step with the wicked
or stand in the way that sinners take
    or sit in the company of mockers,but whose delight is in the law of the Lord,
    and who meditates on his law day and night.That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,
    which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither—
    whatever they do prospers.

Now, hopefully, in all of the above you will have noticed we’ve NOT once mentioned money.

The Western Christian tendency to define blessing in economic, materialistic and consumer driven terms is so far off the mark that it isn’t funny. Bank balances are not a biblical definition of blessing.

Certainly the concept of a blessed life in the Bible assumes an economic component (job security, a fair income, basic financial wisdom and a reasonably just society). But, BUT, BUT!!! – a flourishing, whole and right life goes far beyond economics and is not contingent on personal wealth.

The prosperity gospel is a sham, and more often than not a scam as well!

A blessed life is a certain quality of life, not quantity of wealth.  

These are the sorts of qualities found in a blessed life...

Right relationship and connection with the creator of the universe, the God of heaven and earth.

Non-anxious living, with storms on the horizon, in storms, beyond storms.

A deep set sense of peace, of hope, of being loved. 

A secure sense of value and dignity and place in life. 

Unencumbered in being the person God called you to be. 

Sleeping soundly, laughing lots, enjoying simple pleasures, sharing meals with friends.

Breaking bread and wine. 

Restored and healthy relationships – within yourself, with others and with the rest of creation.

The ability to be present in life. Present with yourself, but also present and connected with family and friends. 

Plenty of people have lots of money but lack most of the above. At the same time, plenty of people have only a little money but despite that their lives overflow with the aforementioned. Who do you think is more blessed!?!

There is way more to a flourishing, whole and right life than one’s bank balance, than living in Beverly Hills.

More needs to be said in regard to money, of course, and hopefully I can share a few more thoughts soon. That said, we need to zoom out before we can zoom in. We need a more biblical concept of blessing before we start talking about money. Otherwise, we’ll struggle to talk about money in its right place; money has a way of becoming the thing rather than a thing. We have to be mindful of this.

So…

·        In considering money we need to keep in mind that when we read words in the bible like blessed, favoured, prosperous, abundant etc, we should think of a flourishing, whole and right life. There is an economic component to the whole deal for sure, but we shouldn’t misinterpret these words through Western lenses infatuated with economics, materialism, consumerism, status, power and bank balances.

·        I absolutely believe God’s heart for people is that they would experience a blessed life – but this means a flourishing, whole and right life. The term has been corrupted by prosperity preaching to the point that it almost needs to be thrown out. Instead though, we’ll try and redeem the term; blessing and prosperity relates to a flourishing, whole, right life. God is and always has been working towards this, the climactic reality of this being the coming of Jesus and His promised return. 

·        Following Jesus won’t result in you becoming a millionaire. Mostly Jesus’ financial advice, if properly followed, will result in bank withdrawals not deposits. Keep that in mind.

·        In economic terms, most of you reading this, with your current wealth, assets and income are already flourishing financially. From a global perspective the medium gross household income in New Zealand, with purchasing power parity taken into account, is about $47,100. That puts you in the wealthiest 4.5% in the world. You’re better off financially than more than 6.3 billion people on our globe. 

A blessed life is a gift from God and is found in Jesus. It can’t be bought. You can’t buy a blessed life.

All too often we give intellectual assent to this but put our hope is in our finances. Money will look after us, keep us secure, give us peace, help us to enjoy life, protect us from storms. That’s often why we are so quick to measure blessing and economic terms, we see money as power, and the power to attain a certain kind of life. This is a lie that the bible warns us against again and again… but that’s a whole different post… 

Christian Spiritualities: Mystics and Others

Here is a John Crowder video I chanced upon the other day. I smiled from start to finish for all sorts of reasons.

Crowder is a self-professed modern day Christian mystic whom I know very little about and my purpose in posting the video is NOT to get into a discussion about the merits for or against John Crowder. Rather, it serves to help illustrate Christian spiritualities and how they interplay. Ideally in a healthy way via community, though often in an unhealthy way via tribalism. Something we've been looking into at church recently.

First of all, consider the helpful illustration from Christain Schwarz' book "The 3 Colours of Your Spirituality."

In sum, he suggests people relate to God via the "world" (creation, relationships, beauty), via the "Word" (gospel, cross, Jesus, bible), and via the "Spirit" (various, I guess you could say, unmediated experiences of God). It's limited and flawed but still a helpful tool. It's important to know your home base, that which comes most naturally for you. For me it is "world," as you can see from my test results which I've included in the graphic. As well, it is helpful to know the pathways that come most naturally to you. You can then also consider the pathways either side and the pathways opposite. Though in reality, they all mix together and we're all a bit of everything.

John Crowder's video is a helpful illustration here as it is classically "mystical." He's not quite "sacramental," nor is he exactly "enthusiastic Holy Spirit," but rather, a more mysterious place in the middle. The "sacramental" side of me loves his celebration of life as a joy and gift and a signpost to God, the fatigued "Holy Spirit enthusiast" side of me is a bit skeptical of the laughing revivals etc, though I can see how the "Holy Spirit enthusiasts" out there could find some life in what he is saying. And then, the "doctrinal" side of me, the opposite of "mystical," worries about what exactly he is and isn't saying. How cool is that! The closer you are to "mystical," either on the "enthusiastic" side or the "sacramental" side, the more you might enjoy what John has to say. The more of a "doctrinal" or "scripture driven" type you are, the more you may be troubled.

Learning to learn from one another, help one another, understand one another, and balance one another is surely better than righting off anything that is different to you.