Honor the Lord with your goods
Dr. Roberto Miranda
(Audio: Spanish)
SUMMARY: Proverbs 3:9-10 emphasizes that we are stewards, not owners, of everything we have and should honor God with all our possessions. The word honor means to prefer, exalt, and give a special place to someone. Our assets include our belongings, money, talents, time, bodies, and knowledge, and they should all be dedicated to the Lord. The primary use of all our possessions is to glorify God. The parable of the rich fool teaches us that we should not be like those who tear down their houses to build bigger ones, but rather honor God with all that we have.
The Bible teaches that we should honor the Lord with our goods and be generous towards Him and others. Giving to the Lord is not a mechanical process, but a way to invite His blessing into our lives. Stinginess towards God is a sin and can lead to scarcity and ruin, while generosity leads to prosperity and blessings. We should give God our first fruits and not just what is left over. When we are generous towards God, we not only receive material prosperity, but also joy, peace, and satisfaction of heart.
Dr. Miranda talks about the importance of honoring God with our possessions and talents. He references Ecclesiastes and how having money without the ability to enjoy it is not fulfilling. When we honor God with what we have, God blesses us with the ability to enjoy life. The speaker encourages the congregation to give to the Lord with a joyful heart, but acknowledges that not everyone may be able to give. The goal is for the church to be a community of joyful givers who recognize that everything they have is owed to the Lord.
The Bible teaches that we should honor the Lord with our goods and be generous towards Him and others. Giving to the Lord is not a mechanical process, but a way to invite His blessing into our lives. Stinginess towards God is a sin and can lead to scarcity and ruin, while generosity leads to prosperity and blessings. We should give God our first fruits and not just what is left over. When we are generous towards God, we not only receive material prosperity, but also joy, peace, and satisfaction of heart.
Dr. Miranda talks about the importance of honoring God with our possessions and talents. He references Ecclesiastes and how having money without the ability to enjoy it is not fulfilling. When we honor God with what we have, God blesses us with the ability to enjoy life. The speaker encourages the congregation to give to the Lord with a joyful heart, but acknowledges that not everyone may be able to give. The goal is for the church to be a community of joyful givers who recognize that everything they have is owed to the Lord.
I want to share with you some scriptures that I hope will be of inspiration for this moment. I want to frame the moment of giving the Lord this offering of gratitude, with a scriptural basis. And the theme of this material that I want to expose and share with you is the following, "honor the Lord with your goods", the Bible calls us to honor the Lord with everything we have. Verse 9 and 10 of Proverbs 3, Proverbs 3:9 says, "Honor the Lord with your possessions and with the firstfruits of all your increase, and your barns will be filled with abundance, and your presses will overflow with new wine."
It's a bit of an odd terminology for us living in the 21st century, this passage was written for an agricultural community and in terms of the land, the crops, the produce of the land. At that time, for the people that was the most important thing, to have a good harvest, to have a barn with an abundance of food, etc., from a reserve. Today we use other things, we use money, we use a bank account. But we can do the translation into that modern terminology. And what that verse, what those two verses encapsulate, is the most basic rule of Christian stewardship, is the foundation of prosperity and blessing. Stewardship is a weird term, as you know it comes from the word butler. What is a butler? A butler is a person who takes care of a home, who takes care of a house of a normally wealthy person, who can employ a butler. And the butler is the person who manages the money, who makes sure the food is on time. The butler is not the owner of the house, the owners are the people who employ him, but he is in charge of the administration of the house's assets, he makes sure to perform his work well. The important thing about a butler is that although it would seem that he is the owner of the house, it is not so, the owner is the owner. The steward simply manages the homeowner's property.
It's a bit of an odd terminology for us living in the 21st century, this passage was written for an agricultural community and in terms of the land, the crops, the produce of the land. At that time, for the people that was the most important thing, to have a good harvest, to have a barn with an abundance of food, etc., from a reserve. Today we use other things, we use money, we use a bank account. But we can do the translation into that modern terminology. And what that verse, what those two verses encapsulate, is the most basic rule of Christian stewardship, is the foundation of prosperity and blessing. Stewardship is a weird term, as you know it comes from the word butler. What is a butler? A butler is a person who takes care of a home, who takes care of a house of a normally wealthy person, who can employ a butler. And the butler is the person who manages the money, who makes sure the food is on time. The butler is not the owner of the house, the owners are the people who employ him, but he is in charge of the administration of the house's assets, he makes sure to perform his work well. The important thing about a butler is that although it would seem that he is the owner of the house, it is not so, the owner is the owner. The steward simply manages the homeowner's property.
