Good Monday morning! Will Shakespeare warned his character to beware the Ides of March. Here in the U.S., we are warned to beware the 15th of April. Yes, this is the time when all those of working age must file their tax returns, even the 49% or so who pay nothing in taxes. I managed to finish mine last Friday and celebrated with a pizza. The frightening part is that I had to pay more this year; no refund for Bucky! Yes, and to top it off I gave the IRS access to my credit card and the state access to my bank account; two groups that are known to be far worse at controlling their spending than I am at controlling mine.
A while back, I came up with the name, "spenduhmungus'; as in don't be a spenduhmungus: one who cannot control impulsive and unwise spending of money. We see a warning to be good stewards of God's money, but sometimes that warning needs to be repeated. Owing to recent circumstances, my unwise spending is certainly not in the amounts that it was back in the day, but that is no excuse for poor stewardship. Even if the unwise spending is in the form of a mere $5, we need to be faithful in the small amounts too.
When Jesus told his parable of the talents, he could have used the one given 10 talents as the example of hiding the money instead of using it wisely. However, he used the one given the smaller amount as that example. Why? Perhaps because those with little can be tightwads just as much as the Scrooge character who had great wealth.
A tithe is a tithe, even if yours amounts to a dime and that other family's amounts to millions, both must be faithful. Some ministries are suffering in this tough economy; please don't try to hold onto what God has commanded us to give, our tithes ...or maybe I should say, His tithes. Trust in God to provide all that we need each day.
Speaking of trusting... if sending more money to a government that seems hell-bent on spending our nation into international bankruptcy court isn't enough to frighten you into trusting in God; I'm not quite sure what will do the trick in this life. Perhaps we need to start warning about eternity in Hell again if our government spending isn't frightening enough to get a person's attention. I'm not trying to trivialize the place of eternal punishment, but trying to express my growing fear of our President's seemingly endless deficit spending. There is nothing quite like paying some more tax money to the government to bring a person to thinking about governmental responsibility.
Great thundering cats! ...as in the big one thundering back and forth through my house right now. Must be something interesting going on outside.
Enjoy the day in Christ Jesus!
Bucky
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