"Financial Stewardship"
Saving
The next area that we
will focus on in regard to financial stewardship is saving money. In the day in which we currently live,
patience is a thing of the past. There
is no desire to wait for anything; including money. We want lots of money right NOW! Proverbs 13:11 says, “Dishonest money dwindles
away, but whoever gathers money little by little makes it grow.” We develop patience as we are saving and watching
our finances grow from a monetary infant to full grown financial maturity. When we have taken the time to nurture the
growth of our money, we tend to be more responsible with spending it. Many times when others have gone through the
process of saving and increasing their finances, lazy people desire to reap the
benefits of that person’s labor and toil.
We read in Proverbs 12:22 that the wealth of the wicked is laid up for
the just but the first part of that verse gives us more valuable insight. It says, “A good man leaves an inheritance to
his children’s children.” In order for
us to be a financial blessing to our children’s children, we have to be
diligent to save. Proverbs 22:7 says,
“The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.” The more responsible we learn to be in
managing and saving money, the less financial “miracles” and “breakthroughs” we
tend to need.
In this modern era of
Christianity, there has been an extreme amount of emphasis placed on teachings
that involve the accumulation of wealth. One popular theme that has circulated
throughout the church is that we must be out of God’s will if we are struggling
financially. However, this teaching is a
dangerous fallacy. The truth of the
matter is that everyone WILL NOT be rich.
There are people who will live paycheck to paycheck, while others will
have more than enough to spare. God has
not revealed to us why, in His sovereignty, He has selected some to have more
and others to have less, but each of us are responsible for properly managing
what we have been given. Even with limit
resources, when we are responsible enough to save, we can still enjoy the fruit
of our labor.
Saving has a
spiritual component to it because it requires us to display a certain level of
self-control. Self-control, which is a
fruit of the Spirit found in Galatians 5:22-23, opens the door to self-denial. Self-denial is necessary in order for us to
develop a relationship with Jesus. He
explains in Luke 9:23 that if we want to be His followers, we must first deny
ourselves. As we deny ourselves the
things we may want today, we place ourselves in a position to have enough to
acquire the things we may need tomorrow.
