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| Character Journal No.33 | Thriftiness |
The Character Journal is a monthly e-zine designed to help parents teach Biblical character qualities to their children. Each month a different character quality is presented with suggestions for Bible lessons and projects.
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In His Service!
Morris Hull
Home Life Ministries, England
Raising children that are mighty in spirit requires both teaching them Godly character and protecting them from evil. Both are essential! With the flood of wickedness available through the internet, we strongly recommend the use of a protected internet service such as CharacterLink (www.characterlink.net). We also recommend the use of the following software to block offensive e-mail messages. This software works seamlessly inside your existing e-mail program.
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For a more complete study, we suggest you use the Online Bible which you can download free of charge from our web site at www.hlm.org/html/files.htm.
NOTE: The black colored text indicates the number attributed to the Greek or Hebrew word in Strong's Concordance as well as a transliteration of the word and its pronunciation. The blue text shows all of the ways that the original word is translated in the Authorised Version. The number beside each of the various words indicates the number of times it is translated in that way; and the number at the end indicates the total number of times the original word appears in the Bible. The red text gives a more technical definition of the original word. In each case, the first time the original word is used is listed first. For the sake of space, not all occurrences of the original word is given but enough to show the various ways in which the word is used.
1) to be a steward
2) to manage the affairs of a household
3) to manage, dispense, order, regulate
1a) specifically, the management, oversight, administration, of other’s property
1b) the office of a manager or overseer, stewardship
1c) administration, dispensation
1) the manager of household or of household affairs
1a) esp. a steward, manager, superintendent (whether free-born or as was usually the case, a freed-man or a slave) to whom the head of the house or proprietor has intrusted the management of his affairs, the care of receipts and expenditures, and the duty of dealing out the proper portion to every servant and even to the children not yet of age
1b) the manager of a farm or landed estate, an overseer
1c) the superintendent of the city’s finances, the treasurer of a city (or of treasurers or quaestors of kings)
2) metaph. the apostles and other Christian teachers and bishops and overseers
Bible Stories
Character Definitions
How to
Demonstrate Thriftiness
at Home
at Work/School
at Church
The "I Wills" of
Thriftiness
-Character First! Education Series 4
Thriftiness vs. Stinginess
How does thriftiness differ from stinginess? Stinginess is holding on to things which should be given to God and others so I can have more for myself. Thriftiness is making do with as little as possible so that I will have more to give to God and others.
Tusser's Poem on Thriftiness
Tusser has a poem on Thriftiness, twelve lines in length, and in rhyme, every word of which begins with t (died 1580).
Men's Manual Volume 2, IBLP, Oak Brook, IL
Personal Evaluation
· Do you plan out each day so you can make the
wisest use of every hour?
· Do you save all you can so you can have
available funds to give?
· When your income increases, do you keep the
same standard of living so you have more to give?
· Does the present condition of your car
indicate to people that you do not value the possessions that the Lord has given to you?
· Do you pay for services that you have the
time and ability to do yourself?
The Power for True
Success
UNDERSTAND GOD'S PURPOSES FOR MONEY
One of the major sources of conflict
— even in Christian marriages — today is money. Everybody has their own ideas
how their money should be used. But as
Christians, we need to realise that everything we have comes from God and belongs to Him.
So in order to be good stewards of the money God has entrusted to our care, we need to
know and understand God's purposes for money.
A man who has financial freedom can
build his job around his family; a man without financial freedom is often forced to build
his family around his job.
Financial bondage is an immediate
consequence of not understanding God's purposes for money. God's purposes for money are
not to provide us with security, independence, or even to buy whatever we want. God's
purposes are, firstly:
TO PROVIDE BASIC NEEDS
If we build our lives around
possessions, then we will be devastated whenever those possessions are lost or taken away
from us. Recent banking and Stock Market scandals prove that even respected, financial
institutions cannot guarantee absolute security. So that people who were trusting in bank
or retirement accounts are now experiencing the consequences of financial bondage.
Security is only possible as we build our lives around that which can never be taken away from us. We can loose every possession, every person, and every position; but if we are building our lives around the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, we can loose everything else and still have security because He can never be taken away from us.
God wants to build into each one of
our lives the quality of contentment. In 1 Timothy 6:8, Paul says, "And having food
and raiment let us be therewith content." The person who is not content with God's
provision of food and clothing will always have deep financial and spiritual problems.
Is contentment a characteristic of
your life? Are you content with your present salary or are you always trying to figure out
how you can earn more money? Are you content with the size of your house or car, or do you
secretly wish for something bigger and better?
A second purpose for money is:
TO GIVE TO CHRISTIANS
During the time of Christ, the Jews
and Gentiles had no dealings with each other. But God was able to overcome this problem
among Christians by using Jewish Christians to take the Gospel to the Gentiles and then
using the Gentile believers to meet the material needs of the Jewish Christians in
Jerusalem who were experiencing famine. Paul explains this purpose for money in 2
Corinthians 8:14: "...that now at this time your abundance may be a supply for their
want, that their abundance also may be a supply for your want...."
Our generosity and willingness to
give to meet the needs of other Christians is a reflection of our true spirituality. You
can often tell how committed a Christian really is and where his priorities really are by
looking at his cheque book.
Not long after my father accepted
Jesus Christ as his Saviour, he became very interested in missionary work. He was informed
of a specific need for £5.00. And although he couldn't meet that need himself (for in
those days after the war, £5.00 was more than a week's wages), he prayed that the Lord
would provide. After he prayed, he lay down on top of his bed. And as he lay there
thinking, he heard my grandmother — who wasn't a Christian at that time — come
up the stairs, past his door and into her room. A short time later, he heard her come out
and stop at his door. Then she came in and said, "Here, I'm sure you can use
that," and put a large white £5.00 note into his hand. God uses the abundance of one
Christian to meet the needs of others.
When was the last time that God
prompted you to give to the need of another Christian? Did you obey God's prompting?
God's third purpose for money is:
TO CONFIRM DIRECTION
One of the greatest protections that
every Christian has from making wrong financial decisions is purposing not to move forward
on any program unless and until the funds are provided. Hudson Taylor said, "God's
work done in God's way will not lack God's support. He is just as able to supply funds
ahead of time as afterward and He much prefers doing so."
God will use the supply of money or
the lack of it to confirm His direction for many of our financial decisions. If the funds
are not available, it could be for several reasons:
Before I left Northern Ireland to
attend Bible college in the United States, my father sat me down and told me that they
weren't able to pay for my Bible school education for two reasons: 1) they couldn't afford
it, and 2) they wanted me to learn to trust God for the money without borrowing and
without making my financial needs known to anyone but the Lord. Half way through one
school year, I didn't have enough funds to pay for the next term. I sensed the Lord
leading that if the funds were not provided on a certain day by 4:00 p.m. then I would
take that as his direction for me to return home. The day of the deadline arrived, and at
3:50 p.m. God had still not provided the money. Then the telephone rang and I was asked to
go immediately to the school office. I was asked if I had all of the money to pay my
school bill. I told them I hadn't and how I sensed the Lord's leading to put a deadline at
4:00 p.m. that afternoon. I was then told that before I even came into the school office,
an anonymous donor had placed enough money in my school account to take care of my entire
school bill. I looked at the clock, and it was just seconds before 4:00 p.m. God had
confirmed His direction with the precise timing of a gift.
This leads us to God's fourth purpose
for money:
TO DEMONSTRATE GOD'S POWER
2 Chronicles 16:9 says, "For the
eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew himself strong in the
behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him." God is a supernatural, powerful
God, who wants to demonstrate His reality and power both to Christians and to an
unbelieving, skeptical world. One of the ways He has chosen to do this is through the
miraculous provision of money.
A miracle is a natural or
supernatural event with precise timing that brings glory to God. Whenever a Christian or a
church prays about a specific financial need, and they receive an unexpected and
unsolicited gift from someone who didn't know about that need, God's supernatural power is
demonstrated.
In Malachi 3:10, we read: "Bring
ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me
now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and
pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it." God
wants to demonstrate His power and bless us if only we will trust Him with our finances.
A young couple I know were challenged
about tithing. They were deep in debt and experiencing all the consequences of financial
bondage after stepping outside of God's will and making some wrong financial decisions.
When the husband received his next pay cheque, they first wrote a cheque for their tithe,
and then paid the remaining outstanding bills. By the end of the week, they had no money
in their bank account and the petrol tank in their car was nearly empty. On the way to
church that next Sunday morning, the husband suggested not giving the tithe to the church
as he needed petrol to get to work the next day; but the young wife insisted that having
made the commitment to God, they should obey and trust the Lord to demonstrate His power
on their behalf. The following day, the young wife expected the Lord to provide the money
miraculously in the post. But when the post arrived and there was no provision of money,
she became angry at God. Then just before the husband had to leave for work, a relative
arrived with an unexpected cash gift enough to fill the family car with petrol. That young
family saw a demonstration of God's power, and they were then able to share with their
children how powerful God is and how He was able to provide for their specific need. God
delights in demonstrating His power so that we can report them to each other and to our
children and to our grandchildren.
Outline taken from Men's Manual Volume 2, IBLP, Oak Brook, IL
I
wonder how much you have accomplished this year? As we approach the beginning of a new
year, no doubt many will be making new years resolutions. As we look back on the past year
we may be more resolved to make better use of the time God gives us. Some people pass
time; some people make time; some people kill time; while others do time.
REALISING
THE BREVITY OF LIFE
Psalm
90:12 says, “So teach [us] to number our days, that we may apply [our] hearts unto
wisdom.”
My
father-in-law recently told me that there are three signs of old-age. The first sign of
old-age, he said, is that you keep forgetting things. But he couldn’t remember what
the other two were.
Late
one night while I was working for the dean of men’s office at the Bible college I
attended, a young man named Randy came to me and asked if we could talk. He shared how he
had deliberately broken some of the college rules. They were small offences — what
many would term insignificant — but God had been working in Randy’s heart and he
knew that no sin is insignificant in God’s eyes. And with tears flowing down his
cheeks, he repented of his sin and told me that he was prepared to accept whatever the
punishment might be. I prayed with him and told him I would get back to him after I talked
with the dean. But less than twenty-four hours later, Randy’s roommate came running
into my dorm room shouting, “Randy! Randy’s dead!” Randy had been killed in
a drowning accident.
One
Sunday evening several years later after our church service was finished, I stood at the
back of the building greeting the members of our congregation. We walked to the car park
and one of the elderly ladies in our congregation pulled along side us in her car and
waved. I had just turned around when I heard a terrible crash. She had just pulled out
into the path of a speeding van that hit her broadside. I rushed to her car, but it was
too late. She was killed almost instantly.
Life
is so short. We have this one brief opportunity — this one brief moment in eternity
— to make an impact in this world for Jesus Christ. Don’t waste it!
There
are many appointments that we can avoid (I successfully avoided an appointment with the
dentist the other week). But there is one appointment that we can never avoid - our
appointment with death. "And as it is appointed
unto men once to die, but after this the judgment" (Hebrews 9:27). How much
differently we would live our lives if we knew we had only 24 hours to live. We would use
every second to it's fullest.
A
pastor shared with me about a man who came to his office a number of years ago after
reading a book which predicted that the Lord would return before the end of the year. This
man was convinced that the Lord would return within a number of months. He was deeply
concerned because although he was a Christian, and although he had attended church every
week, he knew in his heart that his life had counted for little or nothing of any eternal
value.
I
am convinced that so much more could be accomplished for the kingdom of God if we would
only take seriously the brevity of life. By realising that life is a race against time and
there is no second chance. Someone said, “Life is like a coin: you can spend it
anyway you want, but you can only spend it once.”
Secondly,
I believe that we can make the best possible use of our time in this upcoming new
year…
BY
BEING A CONSISTENT EXAMPLE BEFORE THE WORLD
Colossians
4:5 says, "Walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time.
The
greatest influence for Jesus Christ upon my own life was my Godly father. Everyday I was
confronted with the reality of his commitment to Jesus Christ in our home. The home is
where you discover the reality of a person’s spirituality.
Do
your children see the reality of your spirituality in the home? Do they see you behave one way in the church and
another way in the home? Your children - more
than any others - will resent your hypocrisy and inconsistencies and most likely reject
the God you claim to be serving!
There
is a common thinking among many Christians today that we can just throw our spiritual
gears into neutral and coast our way through the Christian life. That kind of thinking is
dangerous for anyone, but it is especially dangerous for Christian parents to have that
attitude. The truth is that if there are
inconsistencies in the lives of the parents, one Christian leader has stated there will be
at least three consequences that can occur in the lives of the children:
1. The children will resent the leadership of the
parents. This is one of the basic contributing factors of
rebellion among many Christian young people today. If
the parents claim to be under the authority of God's Word and the children see
inconsistencies (and children readily detect even the smallest) it causes them to be
resentful and rebel against the authority of their parents and, ultimately, against the
authority of God's Word.
2. The children will excuse to excess what parents
allow in moderation. If the parents tolerate even little compromises,
it will often have a devastating effect upon the children. A respected elder of an
evangelical church once shared with me his concerns about a rebellious teenage son. In that same conversation, this church leader
boasted about travelling down a motor way at 125 mph.
He also reacted against a new government tax by insisting that he would not
pay it. Yet this man failed to see the
correlation between his son's rebellion and his own rebellious attitude. What the parents
allow in moderation the children will excuse to excess.
3. The children will be exposed to the realm and
power of Satan's control. God has designed the parents to function as a
spiritual umbrella of protection over the children.
If you allow failure in your moral life, if there are inconsistencies, if
you neglect your relationship with the Lord, you will open a leak in your protection
through which Satan can bring destructive temptations to your children.
The
world should be able to look at our lives and families as Christians and see that
God’s principles really work and that they offer a far superior way of life than
anything that the world has to offer. But they’re not seeing it! Our marriages are
crumbling, our children are rebelling, and our churches are splitting and falling apart
because we have failed to take seriously the principles of God’s Word
A
third principle for making the most of the time God gives us is…
LIVING
WITH AN ETERNAL PERSPECTIVE
In
Matthew 6:19-21 Jesus said, “19 Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where
moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: 20 But lay up for
yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where
thieves do not break through nor steal: 21 For where your treasure is, there will your
heart be also.”
Almost
2000 years ago in a filthy, rat-infested prison in Rome, a man awaited his death at the
hands of a Roman executioner. His only possessions were a cloak and a few parchments. His
friends had deserted him, and over his head hung the sentence of death. His only crime was
that he had lived his life totally committed to Jesus Christ. In the eyes of the world he
was a misfit, a fanatic, a waste. But in the eyes of God he was a hero, a victor, a
success! His last recorded words are, "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my
course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of
righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day: and not to
me only, but unto all them also that love His appearing" (2 Tim 4:7-8).
1000
years earlier lived another Saul - chosen by God to lead the nation of Israel. A man with so much opportunity to serve God but
who chose rather to serve himself. At the end of his life, in 1 Sam 26:21, we read that he
regrettably said: behold, I have played the fool,
and have erred exceedingly.
How
will your epitaph read? Will you be able to say with Paul, “ I have fought a good
fight, I have finished [my] course, I have kept the faith…” Or like Saul of the Old Testament will you lament,
“…behold, I have played the fool, and have erred exceedingly.”
May
God help each one of us to realise the brevity of life, to be a consistent example before
the world and to live life with an eternal perspective!
Quotes
“A man's treatment of money is the most decisive test of his character - how he makes it and spends it.” – James Moffat
"God's work done in God's way will never lack God's supply. He is too wise a God to frustrate His purposes with lack of funds; and he can just as easily supply ahead of time as afterwards, and He much prefers doing so." - J. Hudson Taylor
"Earn all you can. Save all you can. Give all you can." - John Wesley
"A fool may make money, but it needs a wise man to spend it." - C.H. Spurgeon
Sources used for compiling this mailing: