Spiritual Disciplines Series: "Resources"

Spiritual Disciplines week 5 "Resources" Mark 12 Jesus said Love the Lord your God.

Tonight we are talking about the spiritual discipline of using your resources in service of the Lord. Normally in the Christian community we have three categories for the resources we have…we call them the resource of treasure.. which consists of the what we have as far as money and possessions. Time as resource, we have work time, family time friend time, leisure time and so on. And finally our talents this is the resource of skills and abilities God has given us.

What you have been given is not necessarily ours but was given to us to be a good steward of. So that means that there are three things that we need to focus in on.

Our resources should be used to...
-bring glory to God
-to help others.
-for our enjoyment.

How do we do this?
Mark 12 Jesus said Love the Lord your God.

-Letting go of what God has blessed you with demonstrates and attitude of heart praise. Psalm 86:12 I give thanks to you, O Lord my God, with my whole heart,and I will glorify your name forever.

-Change your mind. Col 3:2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. "my stuff" is not mine.

-Tap into the strength of the Lord. 1 Peter 4:11 whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.

-Ask Jesus to guide your soul as you use what He has given you. Psalm 143:8 Let me hear in the morning of your steadfast love,for in you I trust. Make me know the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul.

Now lets look at the three areas. I am inviting Steve Dorrick up to share a personal testimony on how the Lord laid on His and his wives hearts that they needed to let go of the "treasures" the Lord blessed them with.

The next two areas I will briefly touch on

-Using the talents God has blessed you with. These are the skills and abilities you have and the Bible is clear about where they came from. All of us have things that we are good at and in many cases these are things that we enjoy doing. God has called us to be disciplined in using those things for service to Him.

As Christians many times we either get caught up in using our abilities to bring glory to ourselves or we go to the opposite extreme of thinking our abilities are not good enough and we feel inadequate.

SD Gorden said We have nothing to do with how much ability we've got, or how little, but with what we do with what we have. The man with great talent is apt to be puffed up, and the man with little (talent) to belittle the little. Poor fools! God gives it, much or little. Our part is to be faithful, doing the best with every bit and scrap.
-Giving of your time Psalm 39:5 says "You have made my days"

The interesting thing about the resource of time is that we all have the same amount. The true challenge is how we use that time. Many of us are weighed down by responsibilities, many of us waste time, many of us sleep too much. As a Christian the challenge is to be disciplined enough to be using your time in service of Jesus.
Henry David Therou said "As if you could kill time without injuring eternity."
Jesus had an amazing resource and it was the ability to be able to lay down His life for our sins GOSPEL. We are thankful that He did not hold back but used that resource to serve us. Will you use the ones He blessed you with to serve Him?