Building My Life

Richard has been teaching on the sermon on the mount, and let me tell you that I have had the distinct pleasure of revelation, and now I have the oh so easy pretty difficult task of coming face to face with how I'm going to obey, and start changing my life.  Richard talked today (and other days) about how there's this gap between what we think is normal, and what God deems normal.

He gave this great example of how he went to the Dr., and the doctor found another problem and said "well that's not right." He then talked about how it didn't just happen at once, but bit by bit until Richard's body finally adjusted to the problem and accommodated it instead of it getting corrected. Richard points out that physically this happens, is normal, and is ok, but spiritually, we need to be on guard against this. Letting lies and things that aren't true slowly infiltrate our lives until we accept them as normal is NOT ok, and is really damaging.  Not that we can't recover from these things, but sometimes recovery takes a long time, and it's best to identify and deal with the problem when it's new rather than letting it change you for the worse.

Now in the sermon, Richard talked about many things, many great points, and I don't want to focus on one part while leaving others out. But, well, I am. If you want to listen go.here and you can find all of his sermons plus little discussion questions afterwards :) I, myself, was really hit hard when Richard was talking about giving.

Money is something that I have struggled with all my life. I remember when I was in fifth grade, myself and a couple of classmates started making bracelets, and selling them to friends and other kids. We made probably about $10, and to make a long story short, I made off with the money. I took it. I don't know why, maybe I thought I deserved it for coming up with the idea, but I did. In college, I was roped in to the awesome terrible idea of getting a credit card. One grew into two, which grew into many more. My parents paid off ALL of my credit card debt, and what did I do after college? Wracked up a bunch more. Over the years I've developed a shopping addiction--bargain shopping mostly, but if you don't NEED it, it's not much of a deal right?

The thing is, is that I've always been great about knowing what to do with money. I can whip up a fantastic budget for you. I've done it for myself. I know all the right things to say, and many great tips for how to handle your money. All this time I've thought that I've had a handle on money, and I'm realizing now that all of these years, it's had a handle on me. And it stops today.

For the longest time I've struggled with giving my money, not with the idea of giving, but with actually being consistent with my giving. I sponsor a bunch of kids through World Vision. It automatically goes out of my paycheck, I don't think of it. For the longest time, I counted that as part of my tithe, and in my budget, I took that out, and said, the rest goes to my church. What do you know, but the stuff that doesn't automatically come out of my paycheck conveniently ends up being spent on food, or nights out, or clothes, or books, or basically just things that I don't need. And the rest of my money? All of my other well laid plans...aren't going exactly how I want them to either. Surprise surprise huh?

Richard said this today: "First, you give. And give sacrificially. Then, you build your life around the rest. Unless you order your life to put God first, you leave yourself enslaved." That "seek first his kingdom" goes for the whole money issue too. I've sought first what I wanted, what I thought I needed, what I said was important, instead of putting the kingdom first, instead of honoring God, instead of REALLY trusting him to take care of me and provide all that I need. I've been living enslaved to money for all these years, instead of living in the freedom of generosity.

I have a tattoo that says, "freely you receive, so freely give." It's something that I felt like God spoke to me very clearly, and it's a lifestyle that I've always wanted to adopt. So I'm doing it. I'm catching hold of this whole kingdom thing. I'm choosing to live a life of freedom, and I'm turning over my finances and plans to Christ. He doesn't get what's leftover after I've had all my fun. He gets the firstfruits, he gets my best, and he's the FIRST that I think of when it comes to my money. It's so funny, I'm giving my money away, but I feel free, finally free of financial burden and what to do next. Because I know, God is faithful. I know he is good. I know he is generous in every way.

Over the years my body has slowly been twisted by the love of money, it's caused me to take what I've learned and partially adapt it to what I do, and to limp along in life, accepting that "this was the way it is supposed to be." Today, I've finally accepted that this limp is not normal, that I don't need a crutch, that I need to be (and can be) completely whole. It's just about taking those steps to recovery. Behold, and be changed.