40 Days of Discipline

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2014 Posts


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40 Days of Discipline: Day 33 – Stewardship (extra credit Discipline)

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Matthew 6:21)

In considering the Discipline of Stewardship over the last few days we have not specifically dealt with the matter of money. That was intentional, because we have seen that Stewardship is about a lot more than money. Also, the key principles we have discussed apply as well to money as they do to other facets of our lives. That being said, money is an extremely important matter. In fact, money is mentioned in the Bible more than almost any other topic. Despite the popularity of the topic though, stewardship of money can be extremely difficult because it is so easy to view money in the wrong way. So, let us be very focused and direct our attention to how we view money. What is your view of money? Do you treat your money like it is your own or like it is God’s?

In any well run work environment, workers have to account for every cent of company money they spend. Do you demonstrate that same level of accountability with the money God has blessed you with?

I encourage you to deeply consider how you relate to money. As you think about this important topic remember how alluring and controlling money can be as highlighted in the following verses:

“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” (Luke 16:13)

For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. (1 Timothy 6:10)

Please share your thoughts on how to maintain a view of money that is consistent with being a good steward by posting a comment.


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40 Days of Discipline: Day 32 – Service (basic Discipline)

Jesus said “You shall love your neighbour as yourself”. (Mark 12:32)

There is a kind of service that is prevalent in our society that bears no resemblance to the way Jesus served. It is a service devoid of sacrifice; it is a form of service that seeks payback; and it is the kind of service that caters to the “privileged” but shies away from “the least of these”. We see a lot this kind of service in politicians who have redefined the term public servant and made it an oxymoron.  And, we are amazed when we see the opposite of this kind of service in popular figures such as the late Mother Teresa.

Today and tomorrow I want to deal with passages of scripture that clearly spell out the “right” kind of service – a service that is often sacrificial.

First, if we are going to live out the Discipline of Service we have to take very seriously the admonition in Philippians 2:3-8:

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And, being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death – even death on a cross!

I pray that the Holy Spirit will make this passage of scripture come alive for you. Read it multiple times if you need to and if you feel led, talk to God and commit to allowing him to develop the mindset of Jesus in you – the mindset of a servant.


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40 Days of Discipline: Day 32 – Stewardship (extra credit Discipline)

Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful. (1 Corinthians 4:2)

In the material on Stewardship provided on the 40 Days of Discipline website the broad scope of stewardship is emphasized. “Stewardship is not only about how we handle money”. This point is also highlighted extensively by Patrick Morley in A Man’s Guide to Spiritual Disciplines.  How much of our lives should stewardship cover then? The answer is all of it.

Stewardship is about total life management. Your family, job, education, private life, and property all fall within the ambit of stewardship. The key question then is this: how do we perform as good stewards in these life circumstances? The answer can be found in one word, obedience. A good steward carries out the expectations of the owner, and we have already established that all that we have is a gift from God.  He is the owner, we are the managers.

There is, therefore, an inescapable link between the Disciplines of Stewardship and Bible Study. For it is primarily in the Word that we will find the expectations of our master.  Where stewardship is concerned, not studying the Bible is like attempting to perform a job without a job description.  You can make something up but it likely will not be what the boss wants.

Endeavour to manage your life according to God’s standard and crave the following words from our Master, “well done good and faithful servant”.


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40 Days of Discipline: Day 31 – Service (basic Discipline)

Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms. (1 Peter 4:10)

Our discussion of the discipline of service warrants spending some time on spiritual gifts. We won’t pursue an extensive discussion of spiritual gifts. Rather, we will highlight the strong linkage between service and spiritual gifts and pose two essential questions.

Linkage Between Service and Spiritual Gifts:
If you are a believer, God has given you spiritual gifts. The Biblical admonition to use our spiritual gifts for service is very clear – see the 1st Peter 4:10 passage above. For a more detailed consideration, you can also read 1 Corinthians 12. What is clear, is that God has not left the development of his church up to chance. He has provided the resources required and mandated that many of these gifts should be demonstrated in community. Every believer has an important part to play but the body suffers when the members don’t understand their roles as servants.

There are, therefore, two essential questions for you to answer:
1. Do you know your spiritual gifts?
2. Do you use these gifts for service?

If you don’t know your spiritual gifts, I would encourage you to prayerfully consider this issue. Discuss this with believers you trust. There are now many programs targeted at helping believers determine their gifts, including free online spiritual gifts tests. Sometimes though the best feedback you can get are from the people who know you well.

If you do know your spiritual gift(s) you have a responsibility to use the gift(s) as an act of service to Body.

Let me end with a note of caution. Use of your spiritual gifts in service should not serve as an excuse to not provide service in areas where you are not “gifted”. The local church already suffers from the 80/20 Rule, which says that 20 percent of the people do 80 percent of the work. We need more acts of service, not less.

What do you think?


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40 Days of Discipline: Day 31 – Stewardship (extra credit Discipline)

Yours, LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor, for everything in heaven and earth is yours. Yours, LORD, is the kingdom; you are exalted as head over all. (1 Chronicles 29:11)

Are you really grateful for the things you have? Have you ever had the dining room discussion where your parents told you that you shouldn’t waste food because there are starving people all around the world? At times the comment may have been a ploy to get us to eat something we don’t like but there was a wise underlying principle that if we were grateful for what we had we would wouldn’t waste it (we would be good stewards).

The following excerpt from a Back to the Bible document written by Woodrow Kroll amplifies the important link between stewardship and gratitude:

“When we believe that wealth belongs to us, however, we get ourselves in trouble. We say, “It’s mine, I earned it, I worked hard for it. It belongs to me, and I’ll do with it whatever I want.” If that’s your attitude, you have been duped by Satan in a big way. Satan wants us to believe that everything we have belongs to us and we are not responsible to anyone for how we use it. But the truth is it’s not ours; it’s God’s. Wealth is a stewardship from God. We are just holding God’s wealth for Him, using what we need of it to live on, and investing the rest so that it will bring a greater yield to Him (Matt. 25:14-30). God wants to see what we’ll do with it. So whether it’s money, land or possessions, we will never be rightly related to what we have until we recognize that it is not ours. All that we have belongs to God.
……..All that we enjoy in our lives is ultimately the gift of God to us. Instead of complaining that we do not have more, we would be wise to be grateful that we have as much as we do.”
Do you see a strong link between gratitude and stewardship?


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40 Days of Discipline: Day 30 – Service (basic Discipline)

Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 2:3-5)

In God’s economy motives matter because he examines our hearts. God wants our service to be motivated by love for him and humans. If we are not motivated by love our service could become self-righteous service. Richard Foster in Celebration of Discipline provides a description of what self-righteous service looks like. A summarized version of his description is provided below:

  • Human energy versus energy from the Holy Spirit;
  • Impressed with the “big deal” and concerned with impressive gains;
  • Requires external rewards (to be seen and appreciated);
  • Likes reciprocity in kind (some kind of pay back);
  • Picks and chooses who to serve (usually the high and powerful get served);
  • Affected by moods and whims.

If any of these descriptions characterize our acts of service then we need to question our motivation. By contrast, I believe the acid test of proper motivation is this; does the act of service originate from love? 1st Corinthians 13:4 – 8 serves as a great barometer of motives:

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.

What do you think?


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40 Days of Discipline: Day 30 – Stewardship (extra credit Discipline)

But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. (1 Timothy 6:6-8)

The Discipline of Stewardship is strongly linked to the concept of contentment. The 1st Timothy 6:6-8 passage above is very instructive. In it we see the link between contentment and a proper perspective of what is ours and how we are to relate to possessions. The bottom line is, all the possessions we have are gifts from God (including time, talent and treasure). The words of our Lord in Luke 12:15 provide a similar perspective:

Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.”

Contentment cannot be found in worldly possessions. Compare a contented person to one who is not contented:

  • A contented person gives thanks for what they have while a person who is not contented is never satisfied;
  • A contented person thinks success comes to those who give the most while a person who is not contented thinks success comes to those who accumulate the most;
  • A contented person thinks eternal while a person who is not contented thinks temporal;
  • A contented person uses ambition for the greater good while a person who is not contented is blinded by ambition;
  • A contented person prioritizes God and people while a person who is not contented views God and people as a means to an end.

How contented are you? Do you believe contentment and stewardship go hand in hand?


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40 Days of Discipline: Day 29 – Service (basic Discipline)

The Discipline of Service allows us to live out the commandments that our Lord considered the two greatest commandments. In Matthew 22:36 – 40 we read:

“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

The literature on the topic of service is extensive as an internet search on the topic will prove. Over the next six days, we will focus on selected topics aimed at improving our practice of this discipline. Along with the Bible, I will be sharing from one of the key books referenced on the 40 Days of Discipline website: Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster.

Today we will examine a key Biblical principle, and a short excerpt from Celebration of Discipline:

Biblical Principle – 1 Corinthians 13:3:
“If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.”

The key principle is that service that is acceptable to God must be motivated by love. We will expand on the topic of motivation tomorrow.

Excerpt from Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster:
“Service is not a list of things that we do, though in it we discover things to do. It is not a code of ethics, but a way of living….. It is one thing to act like a servant; it is quite another to be a servant.”

The key point here is that true service is more than activities it is a way of life.


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40 Days of Discipline: Day 29 – Stewardship (extra credit Discipline)

“But who am I, and who are my people, that we should be able to give as generously as this? Everything comes from you, and we have given you only what comes from your hand.” (1 Chronicles 29:14)

As we did for the Discipline of Counsel, we will begin our focus on the Discipline of Stewardship with a quiz. This will be a true and false quiz. There is no pass or fail grade. The questions are simply meant to cause you to think more deeply about the Discipline. All you have to do for each statement below is answer true or false for yourself:

  1. I am confident that I have a Biblical perspective on stewardship.
  2. I habitually view myself as a manager of God’s property.
  3. I view my time and health as gifts from God for which I am a steward.
  4. I view my loved ones as gifts from God for which I am a steward.
  5. I view my vocation (including school) as a gift from God for which I am a steward.
  6. I would consider myself as contented with what I have.
  7. I would consider myself as living a life of gratitude.
  8. I have a burden for God’s work.
  9. I cheerfully support God’s work with time, talent and treasure.
  10. My cheque book or credit card statement would serve as an exhibit of good stewardship.

If you feel led please share your thoughts on your results.


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40 Days of Discipline: Day 28 – Fellowship (basic Discipline)

Permit me to end this week on the study of fellowship on a personal note. My mother was one who loved fellowshipping. I don’t remember much about this side of her before she retired but after she did she seemed to thrive. She helped start a group for retired nurses like herself who cared for one another, met monthly and helped in the community wherever they could. The group is still in existence, over thirty years later. She was always seeking the interest of others, so much so that we would often marvel at how much time Mom spent on the phone (and the subsequent phone bill!). We joked at how many funerals she attended. She was instrumental in the setting up of an elderly home attached to her church and often visited there. She was always kind to family and friends.

The thing with fellowship is that if you do it well, it returns to you in kind. As my mom aged, so many persons responded to her to ensure everything with her was fine. They cared deeply for her as she did for them and others earlier in her life. Last Tuesday my mom passed away. Close friends and family readily reached out to be there for her and for us.

One last thought about fellowship. We enjoy the horizontal but never forget the vertical. My mom never did and frequently thanked God for all that He gave her and did for her. She loved Him a lot. Fellowship is the most meaningful when the vertical drives the horizontal as we can be sure to never get it wrong. Be sure to be part of the Fellowship of the Trinity. Your life will be so much richer for it.