In my dream last night, I bought a lottery ticket and gave it to someone at a place I used to work. He won a million dollars and I wondered if he would share any with me. He did not and immediately changed, and not for the better.
I woke up thinking about this Scripture from the mouth of Jesus:
“Here’s the lesson: Use your worldly resources to benefit others and make friends. Then, when your earthly possessions are gone, they will welcome you to an eternal home.
10“If you are faithful in little things, you will be faithful in large ones. But if you are dishonest in little things, you won’t be honest with greater responsibilities. 11And if you are untrustworthy about worldly wealth, who will trust you with the true riches of heaven? 12And if you are not faithful with other people’s things, why should you be trusted with things of your own?
13“No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”” Luke 16:9-13 NLT
So Jesus has given us something far more valuable than a winning lotto ticket and a million dollars. He wants to see how we use our earthly resources to benefit others, to be a resource for the Kingdom of God, to be, as the book of Tobit so eloquently describes, an almsgiver. Or will we hoard our resources and live for ourselves? Will we refuse to share with Jesus (the poor?) – Remember Jesus saying, whatever you did to the least of these you did to me?
hmmm… So, this was for me and perhaps someone else out there.
Daniel Lovett 