We’re recently started a new series called “reset”. In the first week, we talked about how Jesus makes it possible to reset all of life, giving us a fresh start in life that impacts every key area. We’re going to look at many of these in depth, and this week we see how Jesus resets our use of money.
Have you ever dramatically changed your priorities around money?
Some examples would be at the birth of a child – people usually budget for fewer restaurant meals, and more diapers. Suddenly RESPs and life insurance all become more important.
On news of a serious Illness, if one’s future earnings are suddenly in doubt, spending priorities change. Or in a recession, when jobs are being lost, and investments are losing money.
On a nicer note, getting a new job can mean a new budget with less debt, and some important expenses finally covered.
There are many more examples, not always tragic, but following that usual pattern. New priorities in life get reflected in how we spend our financial resources.
Sometimes we realize it should have been this way all along, and have our eyes opened. We look back now at some financial choices in our past, and realize we were being short-sighted, lazy, cheap or any number of other missteps.
Sometimes we should have known better at the time, other times we couldn’t have known better, just lack of experience and wisdom.
Following Jesus is meant to be that kind of moment where you completely reassess, reset life, including finances.
Quote: Our chequebooks and appointment books say as much about our faith as our prayerbooks.
Question: What kind of life event would make you completely reassess your finances?
Read the Bible in Sync Today
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We are a few weeks into a new series on “Becoming Like Family”. This is important as members of our online community begin to share the daily challenges with friends, and we begin to gather our larger community together as one church community. We won’t be bound together by a building, or institution, but rather by five commitments. We’ve talked about commitment to common learning goals, connectedness as a community of small and large groups, connectedness to God in worship, and now this week, we come to grace in lifestyle.
Those who’ve decided to follow Jesus, and walk in his path, are going to have to choose this over other paths. These choices impact many areas of life. That should be no surprise, but sometimes it’s hard to swallow. We can recoil from rules, or worry about restricted freedom.
We’ll explore that this week, but it starts with understanding why we are asked to live by, and with, grace.
But what does grace mean?
There is a classic Seinfeld episode where Elaine is in a job interview, and the interviewer shares her admiration of Jackie O, who had “grace”. Elaine tries to say, “I think I have a little grace” but the interviewer snaps back, “You can’t have a little grace, you either have it or you don’t.” Elaine backpendals, “Alright, I have no grace. I don’t have grace, I don’t want grace. Hey, I don’t even say grace.”
You can see the confusion here – what does grace even mean? Is it poise and kindness? Is it a lovely name for an old lady that is finally making a comeback? Is it a prayer before a meal?
Question: What do you think of when you hear the word grace? What does it mean?
Reminder: Last week we talked about worship, and asked you to complete our online survey about worship here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/8TS7K93
Reminder: Earlier in this series, we saw the importance of reading the Bible together in sync, so our new daily bible readings start today in our mobile app and web site.
