These are tough economic times all around. The same rules and assumptions that used to be part of the wall paint of life don’t seem to apply any more. Housing values don’t just automatically go up. The next stop on the Dow Jones index may not be a thousand more, perhaps a thousand less. Dividends that used to pay like clockwork may now be calculated at pennies on the share, if at all.
So when we open our Bibles and read, “Blessed is he that considereth the poor” (Psalm 41:1), our minds almost immediately begin thinking up disqualifiers. Sure, if we had the money. Sure, if milk and gasoline weren’t so expensive. Sure, if our 401(k) was still promising us an ample retirement.
But the Bible’s principles for sound money management are not dependent on the ebbs and flows of the stock market. Just because prices are up and wages are down, biblical truth is not temporarily suspended. Lean years don’t exempt us from pursuing God’s way of doing things. In fact, it’s in times like these—when real need is a lot closer to your front door than it may have seemed in days past—that the blessing of giving is actually the greatest. Your generous, sacrificial acts of service and care in Christ’s name have more potential for touching hearts now than they ever did. You can take that to the bank.
Remember, God expects us to be more concerned about people than we are about possessions!
