I've seen a lot of folks, through the
years, have money and lose it.
I've seen businessmen who saw their dreams come
true financially, only to watch it disappear suddenly
into nothing.
This happened to many back in the crash
and recession of 2008.
Men lost their business and never ever recovered
again.
Maybe it happened to you, friend.
I know it sure happened to me.
I knew what it was like to stand
on top of the world and have it
all.
I often made more money in a single
morning than many made all year.
I was living high on the hog, and
I was giving to God in a large
way.
The more I made, the more I gave.
Every month, I tithed not on what was
in my paycheck, not after taxes, but I
tithed 10% of my income before taxes.
I not only tithed 10%, I often gave
15 or 20%.
On top of all that giving, I made
love offerings to ministries and individuals who needed
support.
My wife and I bought automobiles for families
that needed them.
We covered the cost for people to go
on short-term mission trips.
We lived large, but we gave God back
large.
Looking back at those years, I only have
two regrets.
I should have spent less on me and
my family, and I should have given God
even more.
Because a day came when my world came
crashing down, and I lost it all.
I mean, I lost it all.
I was standing atop a rotating world, and
sooner or later, it turned just enough to
toss me off, and that could happen to
you as well, friend.
Through it all, I learned a valuable lesson
of God's ownership and man's stewardship.
This business of saying that one-tenth is
the Lord's and the rest is yours is
not the reality from God's perspective.
There isn't a dollar you've ever had that
wasn't God's.
And you don't go fool yourself, friend, for
one skinny minute and claim ownership on the
other 90%.
It all belongs to God.
It's God's money and God's resources that should
be employed for the advancement of God's kingdom
and the spread of the gospel.
And a day will come when you will
have to answer for the other 90%
that you mistook for your own.
Every bit of it belongs to God, and
you have to give an account of every
bit of it, every dime of it, how
you spent it or how you wasted it
and why.
If you're saved individual, friend, God has made
you a steward, his steward, and he's entrusted
his resources in your hands.
If your stock portfolio is growing by leaps
and bounds and making you richer and richer,
God will make you give him an account
of how you managed it for him.
Did your self-preservation turn into greed for
a grabbing and getting of more of this
world for your own selfish satisfaction?
Or did you give God a bigger percentage
while he was blessing you?
Or did you just hoard it for yourself
and your family?
Did ministries suffer want because you failed to
support them?
Did foreign missionaries suffer want on the field
because you neglected them?
Did Bible translation fail to come to fruition
because you refused to dip in your bulging
bank account and give to it so others
could have a Bible in their native tongue?
Whether you realize it or not, friend, you
are standing atop a rotating world and your
finances could vanish like a vapor in the
wind by a sudden stock market crash.
And then the day will come when you
wish you gave God more, but now you
can't because you no longer have it.
Most folks don't have a clue how risky
the financial markets really are and how unstable
they can quickly become.
That they could lose 50 or 80 percent
of their money very suddenly in what securities
they own.
It could just all vanish.
We are long overdue for a market meltdown
and your net worth may just be a
rug under your feet.
But they'll be soon pulled out from under
you.
There are still 1,200 foreign languages that
still need Bible translation.
And there's more than enough money in Christian
hands right now to eliminate that need.
But the tribesman in Africa waits for the
word of God in his native tongue because
you get your self-worth from looking at
your investment portfolio.
But you stand atop a rotating world and
it will rotate you off sooner than you
realize.
Proverbs 11, 24 states, there is that scattereth
and yet increaseth.
And there is that withholdeth more than is
meet, but attendeth to poverty.