Daily Devotions

The Message Paraphrase has a unique of rendering the words of Luke 16:11-13

Jesus went on to make these comments:

If you’re honest in small things,
    you’ll be honest in big things;
If you’re a crook in small things,
    you’ll be a crook in big things.
If you’re not honest in small jobs,
    who will put you in charge of the store?
No worker can serve two bosses:
    He’ll either hate the first and love the second
Or adore the first and despise the second.
    You can’t serve both God and the Bank.

Here we see the topsy turvy value of the true riches of Christ’s kingdom.

True wealth consists, not in what we keep but in what we give away. As soon as a person has more than they need, the extra they have belongs by right to the person who has not enough. We are God’s stewards. All that we have belongs to him - our time, our talents, our money, our property.

There is an African proverb which says: ‘When you pray, move your feet’. It is good to be silent and attentive in prayer. But the love that grows in me through meeting the Lord in quiet prayer must translate into deeds of love. Saint Ignatius says that ‘Love is found in deeds rather than in words.’ 

Towering over the resort town of Banff in the Canadian Rockies is Mt. Rundle. The mountain is named for Robert Rundle, first missionary to come to that part of the world. Robert Rundle was a Methodist missionary who came to convert the Cree Indians to Christianity. He learned their language and laboured among them from 1840 until 1848. Then ill health forced him to return to his native Scotland. But the Indian people had learned the gospel and had learned the difference between material wealth and spiritual riches. They said of Rundle, “He came among us poor and poor he went away, leaving us rich.”

Father, thank you for all of my blessings. Help me have the wisdom to use them in ways that honour you, bless others, and bring you joy. In Jesus' name, I pray. Amen.