Month: November 2019

Matthew 6:19-21
II Corinthians 8:1-9, 9:11b-15

Two men were stranded on a desert island. One, who seemed cheerful and upbeat was wealthy; the other was nervous and dispirited. He said to the first man, “Why are you so upbeat? Your money is not going to do you any good on this God-forsaken island. We’re both going to probably die here and you know darn well you can’t take it with you when you go!”

“Cheer up,” replied the first man, “We’ll be just fine.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“Because I tithe and I know it’s only a matter of time until my pastor finds me!”

Two weeks ago, my goal was to get us thinking about ‘money.’ I challenged all of us to consider whether or not money is, for us, an idol. We asked ourselves the question Jesus asked Simon Peter “Do you love Me more than these?” where we saw the ‘these’ referred to Peter’s friends, boats and nets, in other words, his ability to make money. I posed the question in the words of a song, “Do we love Jesus ‘more than anything, more than worldly wealth’?” We saw that Jesus gives us a clear choice in the matter: Who or what gets first place in our lives? God or money? We talked about the signs that indicate we might be in danger of putting money first over our relationship with God.

Last week: I began with the following three statements: “Money is a tool. Money is a tool that God has entrusted to us. Money is a tool that God has entrusted to us to use for His glory.”

I shared with the Biblical solution that brings peace to the Christian’s life because it also honors God: the 10/10/80 Plan; whereby we give the first 10% of our income to God, the second 10% goes into our own interest bearing savings account and then we live on the 80%.

And we saw in II Corinthians 9:7 that Paul encourages all of us to think these things through, make a decision about how much we want to give and then just do it, week in and week out.

If you missed either of those two messages, I highly encourage you to go to our website www.crosspointe.cc, plug in your headphones and give a listen.

With that as a reminder of where we have been, let’s hear the scripture reading for the day.

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Proverbs 21:20
Luke 16:13-15
II Corinthians 9:6-15

Before I read today’s scripture, I would like to do a little review of last week.

My goal last week was to get us thinking about ‘money.’

I challenged all of us to consider whether or not money is, for us, an idol.

We asked ourselves the question Jesus asked Simon Peter, “Do you love Me more than these?” where we saw the ‘these’ referred to Peter’s friends, boats and nets, in other words, his ability to make money.

I posed the question in the words of a song, “Do we love Jesus ‘more than anything, more than worldly wealth’?”

We saw that Jesus gives us a clear choice in the matter: Who or what gets first place in our lives? God or money?

And we talked about the signs that indicate we might be in danger of putting money first over our relationship with God.

If you missed that message, I highly encourage you to go to https://staging.crosspointe.cc/more-than-anything/, plug in your headphones and give a listen.

I hope that message you got you to thinking about this subject. For I told you last week that today I would point us in the direction of dethroning money in order to give God His rightful place on the throne.

After all, “God is holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty.” ¹ and because He is, “It Is the Cry of Our Hearts to Follow Him.” ²

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This week, members of CrossPointe’s Leadership Team shared their thoughts on the importance of worship.