Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Virginia - Money

"Money is the largest idol in American culture," said Scott Schantzenbach during a stewardship seminar. When churches talked about money, he continued, "they are looking into the eyes of the beast."

When we worship money instead of God, we become scared, shallow and slow - all traits of our larger culture, which specializes in often doing too little, too late resulting in frugal, timid, sacrifice free solutions to major problems such as Katrina, poverty, the Iraq war, global warming, education, etc.

Our God is a God of courage, of significance and of nimble response to problems and calls us to be the same. Our God could create a world where there was none, because all the molecules of the world are at his finger tips. Our God could create nations from the wombs of barren women because he has life at his abundance. Our God defeated death and sin because he has love beyond measure.

All these God gives to us. "Be strong and courageous," God tells Joshua as he takes over from Moses. Together let us take the bold step and fix our focus from our wallets (which feel empty no matter how much they contain) to our God of abundance and let ministry in God's name flow from our lives and our community of faith.

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