Shrewd For God
We’re to use what we’ve been given for the furtherance of God’s Kingdom. This was the heart of the message given by Jesus in the parable of the unjust servant.
Jesus said, “Therefore if you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches?” (Luke 16:11)
The unjust steward was shrewd in using his master’s possessions in securing his own future. While we think what he did was bad, Jesus commended him saying we need to be shrewder in what God has given to us in securing our future.
How are we using what God has so graciously given to us? Are we using our possessions and money to help secure our future as well?
“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matthew 6:19-21)
Haggai told God’s people during the time of their return from their Babylonian captivity to consider what they were doing. They were building their own kingdoms while God’s temple laid in ruin. And so God sent a wasting disease.
“Consider your ways! You have sown much, and bring in little; you eat, but do not have enough; you drink, but you are not filled with drink; you clothe yourselves, but no one is warm; and he who earns wages, earns wages to put into a bag with holes.” (Haggai 1:5b-6)
The prophet Malachi gives us the answer. “‘Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, … and try Me now in this,’ Says the Lord of hosts, ‘If I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you such blessing that there will not be room enough to receive it’” (Malachi 3:10)