How are you managing life

Luke 16:1-13

Brothers and sisters in Christ, it is getting dark in all aspects of this life, the debt is being called in and many in the Church have been molded into this empty culture and are soon to find out the price is much higher than they can or want to pay.  So please ponder these words of Jesus as he tells His disciples about the dishonest manager.

“He also said to the disciples, “There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was wasting his possessions. And he called him and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Turn in the account of your management, for you can no longer be manager.’ 

This guy sounds like many in our culture, he had few skills, he was not willing to work and he was too proud to beg, so he came up with this plan, and did I say he was also a crook?  So this was the plan: “I have decided what to do, so that when I am removed from management, people may receive me into their houses.’ So, summoning his master's debtors one by one, he said to the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ He said, ‘A hundred measures of oil.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, and sit down quickly and write fifty.’ Then he said to another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ He said, ‘A hundred measures of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, and write eighty.’

Now pay attention to what the rich man says about his dishonest manager; “The master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness. For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.”  Now stop and think, where is the unrighteous eternal dwelling?  In Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians it is stated where they will end up; “The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.” (2 Thessalonians 2:9-12)  Not a good plan!  For it is clear in Scripture that God is righteous and that evil has no part of Him, Psalms 145:17, states this very clearly, as well as Psalm 97:2.

Jesus gives this summation to the story of the dishonest manager: “One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much. If then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful in that which is another's, who will give you that which is your own? No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.” 

Examine yourself, look in the mirror and ask the Holy Spirit to allow your eyes to see the truth, I must confess I’ve dropped the ball many times, but it is history and I have no desire to be the dishonest manager.

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice