Do you have a plan for investing your money and possessions in something of eternal significance? If you don’t have a specific plan, then you are not making the most of the time, talent, and treasure that God has blessed you with. It’s an issue of stewardship. Randy Alcorn wrote Money, Possessions, and Eternity to address a number of issues including: giving, saving, investments, retirement, inheritance, etc. Clint and I feel very strongly about these issues. God has called us to be good stewards of the resources that He has trusted us to manage. We are not owners…He is. I would gladly have paid full price for the lessons that I learned in reading this book, but I believe that I was even a better steward for noticing it available for free in the Kindle Store a few weeks ago!
While reading this book, I highlighted a variety of Alcorn’s thoughts as well as several Bible verses and quotes that he included. I hope you will find these thoughts helpful as you pursue God’s best for your family in the area of the resources He has trusted you with.
- The man of pseudo faith will fight for his verbal creed but refuse flatly to allow himself to get into a predicament where his future must depend upon that creed being true. He always provides himself with secondary ways of escape so he will have a way out if the roof caves in. What we need very badly these days is a company of Christians who are prepared to trust God as completely now as they know they must do at the last day. A. W. TOZER
- Our use of money and possessions is a decisive statement of our eternal values. What we do with our money loudly affirms which kingdom we belong to. Whenever we give of our resources to further God’s kingdom, we cast a ballot for Christ and against Satan, for heaven and against hell. Whenever we use our resources selfishly and indifferently we further Satan’s goals.
- The everyday choices I make regarding money and possessions are of eternal consequence.
- “The word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12)
- He who has God and everything has no more than he who has God alone. C. S. LEWIS
- He also knew that none of us can enthrone the true God unless in the process we dethrone our other gods.
- If Christ is not Lord over our money and possessions, then he is not our Lord.
- Bible characters shows that our handling of money is a litmus test of our true character. It’s an index of our spiritual life. Our stewardship of our money and possessions becomes the story of our lives.
- our handling of money is a litmus test of our true character. It’s an index of our spiritual life. Our stewardship of our money and possessions becomes the story of our lives.
- “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2)
- Where riches hold the dominion of the heart, God has lost His authority. JOHN CALVIN
- God created us to love people and use things, but materialists love things and use people. Take for example our society’s tendency to treat people as objects.
- Satan works on the assumption that every person has a price.
- Materialism is a fruitless attempt to find meaning outside of God.
- Why does the Christian community in the Western world bear so little resemblance to the Church described in the early chapters of Acts?
- Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ. (Galatians 1:6-10)
- The believer’s view of reality should be radically different than the nonbeliever’s. We should live differently because we see differently.
- Our devotion to the newspaper and neglect of the Bible is the ultimate testimony to our interest in the short-range over the long-range.
- Being oblivious to eternity leaves us experts in the trivial and novices in the significant.
- “Do not wear yourself out to get rich; have the wisdom to show restraint. Cast but a glance at riches, and they are gone, for they will surely sprout wings and fly off to the sky like an eagle” (Proverbs 23:4-5)
- Stewardship isn’t a subcategory of the Christian life. Stewardship is the Christian life.
- “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much” (Luke 16:10)
- “The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it; for he founded it upon the seas and established it upon the waters” (Psalm 24:1-2)
- “You are not your own; you were bought at a price” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20)
- What am I holding on to that is robbing me of present joy and future reward?
- That bread which you keep belongs to the hungry; that coat which you preserve in your wardrobe, to the naked; those shoes which are rotting in your possession, to the shoeless; that gold which you have hidden in the ground, to the needy. Wherefore, as often as you are able to help others, and refuse, so often did you do them wrong. AUGUSTINE
- God’s work done in God’s way will never lack God’s supply. HUDSON TAYLOR
- How different our standard is from Christ’s. We ask how much a man gives. Christ asks how much he keeps. ANDREW MURRAY
- We should live more simply—and give more generously—because it frees us up and shifts our center of gravity.
- What message are we sending to God when we go into debt rather than live on what he has provided?
- Debt is especially dangerous when it restricts our freedom to respond to the Holy Spirit’s call to move or change.
- Earthly goods are given to be used, not to be collected. Hoarding is idolatry. DIETRICH BONHOEFFER
- How much is our self-worth tied up in our net worth?
- There are only three ways to teach a child. The first is by example, the second is by example, and the third is by example. ALBERT SCHWEITZER
- I continually find it necessary to guard against that natural love of wealth and grandeur which prompts us always, when we come to apply our general doctrine to our own case, to claim an exception. WILLIAM WILBERFORCE
- Fellow Christians ought to disciple each other in financial stewardship.
