Does Your Bank Statement Reflect Your Heart?

basketThe other day I was reading about a professional basketball player who had become a free agent and signed with another team. He had been a substitute most of the time so his statistics weren’t wonderful, something in the neighborhood of an average 3 rebounds and 2 points per game.

If memory serves me correctly some suckers–oops strike that–some team paid him three million dollars a year to come play with them.

Which got me to thinking. They ought to hire me. Now, I may not get three rebounds per game but I could stand back out of the way and the law of averages says that at least one ball per game would accidently bounce my way. And I could probably get fouled once a game so if I made one of my free shots I could average one point and one rebound per game.

And here’s the good part. I’d play for this generous team for just one million dollars per year. They would get nearly as much out of me and only have to pay a third of the price. If any pro basketball teams are reading this, just hit, “reply,” send me your proposition, and I’ll be glad to consider it.

Strange Priorities

I love sports but when I see the billions of dollars which get sunk into them, I get a sick feeling in my stomach. Or have you seen the megabucks that wacko movie stars and singers get? Something is wrong in our culture.

One of the biggest causes of death in Africa is inaccessible and impure water. I read a statistic somewhere which said that we could dig wells and solve the water problem there for about ten billion dollars. “Oh, that’s a lot of money!”

The ‘needy’ NFL football players signed a contract two years ago, I think, that promised them nine billion dollars a year to strut and preen (and play football).

You can tell where a man’s priorities are by the way he spends his money (and a culture’s priorities, too).

Strange Churches

There were churches in the Macedonian province during New Testament times who heard of the need of Christ-followers in Jerusalem. They decided to take an offering. Now, these weren’t rich people. They were poor. It was a case of the poor taking an offering for the very poor. But, listen to this:

“My friends, we want you to know that the churches in Macedonia have shown others how kind God is. Although they were going through hard times and were very poor, they were glad to give generously.

“They gave as much as they could afford and even more, simply because they wanted to. They even asked and begged us to let them have the joy of giving their money for God’s people.   And they did more than we had hoped. They gave themselves first to the Lord and then to us, just as God wanted them to do.” (2Co 8:1-5, CEV)

I like that, they “begged us to let them have the joy of giving their money for God’s people.” How we spend our money often reveals our heart. Let’s take a look at our bank statement. What  gives us joy?
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Hmmm …
Leaders are getting microwaved and not crock-potted. (It takes time). John Maxwell

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