Tag: parable

The Rich Fool

The Rich Fool

If you aren’t familiar with this parable, make sure to read these few verses.  Luke 12:16-21 and Psalms 99.

A farmer has an abundant harvest, more than he could store in his barns. So he tore down the existing barns, built bigger barns to store it and save for himself so he could relax. Specifically, he was looking forward to taking it easy, eating, drinking, and being merry, for the rest of his days.  Cue the voice of God: You Fool! Tonight you will lose your life, then who will have all of your stored up harvest?

Jesus wraps up the parable with the warning that the same will be for any of us, that store treasures and is not rich toward God.

I wonder where specifically this farmer went off track?  He is described in the beginning as rich (but not yet called foolish)…so maybe leading into the abundance he is a rich + wise farmer. Having a good harvest or abundance isn’t bad. I don’t even know that storing the harvest was all that awful. He had to put it somewhere, right?! Although I’m not sure why he had to tear down the small barns and build the bigger barns…couldn’t he have built an extra barn for the excess? Why tear town the existing barns? I’d really like to ask this farmer a few questions. 🙂

It seems like it went downhill with his heart + desire. We don’t hear anything about a grateful heart for the abundance, a tithe or offering back to the Lord, and we don’t read that he sought direction from God on how to use the abundance.  We don’t even hear any of his own plans to use the abundance to further the kingdom. He wants to relax and not have to worry about his future, keeping it in his own (perceived) control, relying on the abundance. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE a good sabbath – we are even commanded to rest. But not forever!

The farmer’s plans sure sound A LOT like modern era retirement goals!  Or lottery dreaming… “If I win the lottery, I am quitting my job tomorrow and living the good life”.  While retirement planning is a good way to show stewardship over what God has provided, doing it without the Lord will lead us down a path like this Rich Fool. It seems like a fine line!

How much of my financial planning and saving is to be a good steward and how much is me wanting to have control? It feels hard to discern. Are my conversations with God about money sincere? Is my heart and mind completely open to whatever He would ask of me? I love this picture of having our hands open – fully willing to use anything the Lord gives, however He directs. And it’s when our hands are fully open, we are also able to fully receive what He has for us.

Earlier this week I left a conversation with my jaw wide open and a tear in my eye.  Truly humbled by someone I really don’t know that well – but I crossed paths with Bob and wished him well in his upcoming “retirement”. I asked him what he had planned, to which he quickly replied “FIND A JOB”! What I know  about Bob is that he has a heart for the Lord and a heart for kids. His career has been in shaping children, and at home, he and his wife have fostered and adopted children. I really don’t know much more about his family or his story, other than he was at the point in his career where he either could retire or had to retire, and yet he wasn’t planning to truly retire. He shared that he needed to keep working to get these kids through college. I think about the choices he had to make when welcoming kids into his home, and knowing it would push back his time to retire. I wonder what else he and his wife have sacrificed for the kingdom. Would I have a heart like Bob, who likely sees his peers “retiring” and he is retiring from one career and actively looking for the next.

Lord, thank you for all the prosperity you have given me. Thank you for the talents and opportunities to prosper. Help me to surrender any control or fear about money, and have complete confidence in Your provision. Please put people in my path that have current needs, more than the future me might need. Give me wisdom in being a good steward and keep me from being a fool! Thank you for people like Bob that show me how to be rich toward you. Amen.

Why We Should Quit Making Excuses

I decided to write today’s post on a parable in Luke 14. Today writing is all about excuses. We all use them but I want to remind you of the danger in them.

12 He said also to the man who had invited him, “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers[b] or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. 13 But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, 14 and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”

15 When one of those who reclined at table with him heard these things, he said to him, “Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!” 16 But he said to him, “A man once gave a great banquet and invited many. 17 And at the time for the banquet he sent his servant[c] to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’ 18 But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it. Please have me excused.’ 19 And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to examine them. Please have me excused.’20 And another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’ 21 So the servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house became angry and said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame.’ 22 And the servant said, ‘Sir, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.’ 23 And the master said to the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled. 24 For I tell you,[d] none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.’”

Today in Luke 14, Jesus told a parable about a great banquet. The man in the parable wanted to throw this great feast! I can just imagine this in today’s world. It would be in a great big house with different foods all over for people to try and enjoy. There might be some light music, wine, and of course everyone would be dressed in their finest clothing. Ok let’s get back to this parable, this man paid for the food and prepared it all for his guests and then sent his servants out to gather the people he invited. Then he waited. His servants came back to him saying that all of his guests gave them excuses about why they couldn’t make it and NO ONE was coming. Can we just stop right there and start to think about this? How would you feel if you spent hundreds of dollars and multiple hours cooking this beautiful feast only to find out your guests were no longer coming. I’d be a little upset; ok I’d be pretty angry. Of course, this guy was too! What he did though was amazing. He invited people who were crippled, blind, and lame. These were people who would never be invited to such a dinner…yet they were. He did all this work, spent all this money, and didn’t want to see it go to waste. Jesus ends the parable with what the man says, “For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.”

 

Can you spot the bigger story behind this parable?

 

This is a story of the heavenly kingdom. The servants are the people of God who are reaching out the people of this world. We are reaching out to people but find that people don’t need God or aren’t ready to change. Time and time again we give excuses or say we aren’t ready to change but where does that leave us. Those people who think they have time, or don’t want to change yet….God says that none of them will ever taste his banquet. NONE of them will ever be in glory with him if they don’t decide now. Do you see who does come to the banquet? It’s the people who are weak, people who rely on God to be their strength. Most importantly, it’s the people who ACCEPTED the invitation.

 

I grew up in a small town where there were a lot of guys that grew up in a good home but strayed away from it because it was too “constricting” to be a Christian. After time, and a whole lot of excuses, most make it back to the faith but all assume that they have time to do that. We so easily forget the God is coming like a THEIF in the night. Remember that we don’t always have time, and God, our heavenly father, is always ready to welcome us home. All we have to do is stop making excuses.

Malformed

sweet vanilla heaven

Judges 11:12–40; Acts 15; Jeremiah 24; Mark 10

I was reminded this week of a statement made by A.W. Tozer. He says “what comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” The truth is that I rarely take the time to consider what I believe about God. It’s likely that many my beliefs were formed in childhood. The startling reality is these, often wrong, views of Him affect the way that I read and interpret Scripture, which affects all of my life! Most days, I breeze through our daily reading assignments quickly, so that I can gain the information it contains and get on with my day. As I do, the information that I glean and the nuggets of wisdom that stand out to me are subject to my biases and opinions of who God is, how he acts and what he thinks about me. Thankfully, not every day ends this way. Today is one of those days.

I cannot tell you how many times I have read the parable of the rich young man, found in Mark 10:21-27. If you are like me, your thoughts were shaped the first time you read it and remain unchanged to this day. Gratefully, God revealed something new to me today. It is discovered by changing the emphasis. My focus has always been on what Jesus said and not what Jesus did. Let me show you the difference. Verse 21 tells us what Jesus said. It’s highlighted in red, so it is hard to miss. “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” Without closer examination, I can easily mistake God as a taker, preventing me from enjoying all the fun things this world has to offer so that he can have all the glory.   NONE of those are true! In fact, the opposite is true, in every case. God is a God of giving, abundance and the creator of all good things. Not only that, he created us, individual and special. When we enjoy the work of his hands and remember that he is responsible for it all, he receives glory. He would never force it!

Today, in my umpteenth time of reading this scripture, I saw the more important part. It’s what Jesus did. Read the first part of verse 21, hidden in front of all the red letters.  It says, “And Jesus, looking at him, loved him.” Understand that when I focus on what Jesus said, I am left with what God wants to take away from me.  I, consequently, develop the wrong thoughts about who he is and how he works. However, if I first look at what Jesus did  and think about how Jesus loves me, my interpretation changes drastically. Look at these word descriptions for “love.”

  • wish well
  • to take pleasure in
  • long for
  • denotes the love of reason, esteem.

Now, use love to interpret what Jesus was doing.  Jesus first looked at the man and with all of his heart took pleasure in him, longed to be in a close relationship with him, held him in high esteem and wished him well.  I now have a whole new picture of who God is, how God works and what God thinks of me.   Clearly, Jesus words were not born of condemnation; they were born of his deep desire to see the young man become exactly who he was created to be. Whole and vibrant, living an abundant life. Do you see it? This is what he wants for us too!

My conclusion is that if I think of God as a bully or a taker, I can never experience what he so desperately wants to give me. And that is just it, Jesus does not take, he gives. He gives love, to be exact.  Unfortunately, the young man was not willing to recognize the love in Jesus’ comments. How about you? When you think about God, do you see love?  Do you gain hope and abundance or do you, like the young man, see absence and scantiness that leads to despair? Whichever the case, I pray that God will graciously bring us to a right understanding of who he is, how he works and what he thinks about us so that we can live the full lives he created us to live and receive all glory and honor that are due him.