Giving

Luke 16

The sermon at Church today was on the parable of the shrewd manager. By God's grace I had a couple of thoughts.

• Firstly, I really need to give more, and not just of my money. I am particularly weak, and particularly evil in my giving of time and my 'rights' to fairness. To win friends in this world (v.9) you have to give of your time and hold your rights loosely. Practically, I need to pick up the phone more often, email more, and more generally need to invest in relationships... and not just with those who are my friends already.
• Secondly, I just realised that when Jesus talks about giving, he almost always talks about giving to other people, and particularly the poor. Rarely does he talk about giving to the religious institutions. This is interesting when most sermons on ‘giving’ I have attended have focused on giving to that particular church (there are all sorts of caveats here but I am trying to be brief).

Lord, show me more of how you have model self-giving to me, and by your Holy Spirit my I live in a similar way.