Getting Rid Of Our Stuff

When we approached the peak of our income and equity between the ages of 60 and 65 and living in Belize, I felt it was time to develop a sound basis for dispersing much of what God has given to us, especially what was in the form of real estate equity. We could leave it to posterity to disperse, or to disperse it in blocks, such as one house at a time to a charitable cause, or as we finally chose, to use some of our equity in our own ministry. This was to help children in education and with their basic life needs which may also involved their mothers. It also involves widows and persons without skills and jobs or having other handicaps; the poorest of the land. Basic is the concept that God still owns everything he has entrusted to us and we are to make the best use of it. This is called Christian stewardship. What criteria did we use to decide what and who to give help? [While we developed this in Belize, we largely followed this after we moved back in 2011]

We help those near us, who knock on our doors and come to us. We do not seek out needy people since that is not necessary in our case in Belize as it might be in the US.

We try to ascertain who may or may not have other resources from friends and family and relatives who should be helping them. We ask whether it helps them or makes them dependent and less likely to try helping themselves.

We are open to the advice of our Christian brothers and sister, and seek to know if needs presented to us are real or fake. We seek to help on a minimum level with basic needs and avoid “needs” of people increasing like an addiction to our money, where they want more and more.

We have special concerns for children who may suffer hunger, medical needs, education inadequacies because of their parents neglect or inability to provide for them. Parents may need to feel deprivation to be motivated to do their greatest to support themselves, but children should not be allowed to suffer because of their parents. Much spiritual discernment is needed here.

For us it is not only how much we can afford according to our income, but how we can help real needs in the best way. We want to help generously without giving carelessly to those who may become dependent like young women who should try to help themselves with counseling.

We can calculate the rate at which we could liquidate our equity over the next 30 years, but we have only recently reached the peak of logical dispersion, given that we won’t be in this ministry for 30 years. Perhaps only 5-10 years. If there is money left over for other ways to distribute later, we will have to decide about that when the time comes. It is a basic conviction that it is a poor stewardship to hold on to our wealth for 20 years when it could be used in the Kingdom business presently. So when I am given the challenge to help someone with daily bread, or with several hundred dollars in medical expenses, or school tuition in the best local Christian school, I don’t feel loss. I don’t worry that God who creates the rain will not also provide if there ever be a rainy day for us. We need to follow our instincts and the Holy Spirit, with our self interests in money not being an issue, but what is best for needy causes now. When we see ourselves as stewards of God who has blessed us; that He cares for all people like for us, we can freely give as we have been given.

                                                How is God Present Today?

At times when I hear people calling the Bible the Word of God, I feel a bit uneasy. It is assumed that the book is the revelation of God for today and what we need to adhere to most seriously. This is fine except it is not the whole truth of God with us today in how he wants to speak to us. It is true the Spirit speaks to us as we may be reading the Bible but there is a further truth we should understand to see the whole matter of God speaking to us today and throughout periods of holy history.

In the Old Testament, we have a record of God's attempt to make his will and nature known through the law and his marvelous deliverance at various times like from Egypt and other enemies. In the prophets we have further revelation of God's will. The prophets also foresaw a further revelation of God's plan in the coming of a Messiah.

The Gospels are the record of God coming to his people and for all the world in the person of Jesus. He made clearer the will of God than the Old Testament, and also presented himself as the sacrifice to replace the Old Testament system. He thus ushered in a New Covenant of how people can relate to God through faith in him, his teachings, and his sacrifice.  We call it the New Testament, or actually, New Covenant.

Jesus however predicted a third step in God revealing his will for his people. He would go away so that the Holy Spirit could come. He said it is good- actually better for him to go, so that the Spirit would come and “Teach you all things.” Jesus would be going away; he was here only for a while. The Spirit will come as the permanent presence of God with his people and guiding them. (Cf. John 14-16. This is where the Old and New Covenant was leading to and was perceived already in Joel where it was prophesied that the Spirit would come on all, young and old, men and women. This is the dispensation of the church and which was inaugurated on the day of Pentecost.

This progression of holy history of God reaching out to man and coming to live with man, raises the question of the use of the Bible and the tendency of many to glorify it as was suggested in the beginning of this discussion. The least we can say is that it is the record of God carrying forth his purposes with his children from the OT law, and the Gospels to ushering in the age of the Spirit. Though it is full of items of true faith and has also examples of the short comings of God's people. Even though David could be considered a “man after God's own heart” many of the Psalms express his hatred for his enemies so contrary to the teaching of Jesus. To glorify the Old Testament, requires gymnastics of interpretation to make it all come out in the Spirit of Jesus.  

Yet without doubt, it is useful to be read and listening to the Holy Spirit for what God us saying to us each day s we follow Christ. But the Spirit is our inner contact with God, and the Bible is more of an intellectual guide to show us God's will with the up-date of the Holy Spirit in us. Jesus said that it is the Spirit that gives life. The Bible is for reference of God's ways in the past not meant to guide us in all of our challenges moment by moment today as well as newer issues of culture.

Example of God revealing his will by his Spirit beyond the Bible is seen in how the church came to recognize over history that polygamy and slavery were not God's will at all, even though Jesus and the NT are not explicit on these. And for our daily discernment and decision, only the Spirit can give us the current will of God for each step of the way.  The Bible is useful in many ways, but it is the Spirit who is our contemporary “Counselor”.

Considering personally how the Spirit is needed for guidance beyond the Bible is illustrated by when I wonder how to help desperately poor people we know well from living in Belize for many years. How to give generously without developing dependency  where it is hard to find jobs and self-support. Only the Spirit can guide me in what is best. My intellect would be clouded by my self-interests and bias. What is God’s way to help them? Certainly intercession is also needed even in seeking the Spirit in how to pray. The Bible has many helpful principals but the Spirit is needed greatly in everyday decisions and guidance. He is God present with us today. 

                                               Is Our God Too Great For Us?

David the Psalmist and poet looked up into the night sky and was amazed. Even with his unaided eye, he marveled at the heavenly bodies of sun, moon and stars. Then he marveled that God, who made all that, could care for people, small seemingly significant in the scale of the universe. Yet he realize that God cared for him.

Today we are awed even more when we learn of the magnificence of the universe, and the sub- microscopic elements of nature as well. Scientists say that there may be 400 billion stars in just the galaxy our earth is a part of. Furthermore, they estimate there maybe 107 billion galaxies, or groups of stars. When they consider how long it takes for light to travel to earth from some of these stars they suggest the universe may be 13.8 years old. As I hear this from scientists, whether they make only estimates or what, I sometimes have to wonder how he could care about little me, an ant, if that much, in his total scope of creation. One children's video we used to have of Jonah's experience explaining to his ship mates that his God was the creator of all things; they said, “You mean one God created all this?” The microscopic world, we know, is just as unfathomable.

I have a feeling God does nor want us to get hung up with all his wonders so that we have a hard time to really believe in him, that he has a personal care for us. Perhaps he want us to only know some part of who he is. I suppose that is why he sent Jesus, his representative, to earth for us to learn what he really wants us to know. Jesus called God “Father”. That is a part God really wants us to know. In nature we see that he is also much more, and so we will worship him, besides just asking favors of this creator-Parent.

Some time ago, I saw a newborn child, less than a day old, my first great-grandson. He was nestling there in the lap of his grandfather, eyes quite wide open when we first saw him. He seemed to feel that there were people around him. But as we passed him around, he closed his eyes and went into a deep sleep, it seemed. He was loved, contend, totally unconcerned that he was the center of attention. Nothing could disturb his rest in those loving arms that cradled him. This little fellow has much to learn about these people around him. But he doesn't care about that now. He is just totally content, being loved.

Can we be that content, not worrying, about all that goes around us, resting also in the strong arms of our heavenly Father? If we knew all about him, we might wonder how he has time for us. We might think he has too many other things to be concerned about- perhaps a thousand earths with people like us, or a million. If he has to covers a million light-years of space, is he also near to each of us? But the child does not wonder about all his people. He feels the kind, warm arms of love around him. Perhaps it is good we do not know too much, or all about God- just that he is totally in control of our little world. That is what he most wants us to know, and that we should let all mankind know that about him, our loving Father.