Episode 616

TODAY’S READING

Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.

1 Peter 4:10

As good managers have the very grace of God; not to be a good manager, you need to be a wise leader. And to be a wise leader, you need to listen to the needs of those around you. God has given you a gift. And I’m hoping that we are generous people; the Message version of this verse is to be generous with the different things God gave you, passing them around. So all get in on it in a straightforward message. Be generous with the things the different things that God has given you. So let’s stop there for a second. This is affirming that God has given you many things and many gifts. He is giving you the blessing of wisdom. He is giving you the blessing of financial resources. He’s giving you the blessing of talent; whatever it is, God has given you many things, and then he goes on to saying to be generous. So God is the giver of all, and we are able to share and pass them around so that we all get in on it. Life is so much better when we all benefit from the blessing of the Lord because it was his to give us; first, it was never ours to give first. And so, May we come together as a community and continue to be generous. 

May we be good managers of the gifts that God has given us. And may we be good stewards of the blessings so that we can continue to be generous, so we can continue to give freely, and so that every person that we come in contact with directly and indirectly are benefited because of the gifts that God has given us. And so today, as you go about your day, think about everything that you have, think about the resources, the talents, the connections, and the network, the places that God has put you in and put you through and say Lord, how can I be Generous Lord, can I be generous with my time I treasure my talent? What can I do to better serve your people? And if we started our day, every day, asking that question, I bet you we will change a life every day. And together, we can continue to spread light in our corners of the world.

Prayer:

Father God, we thank You, Lord, for this beautiful Monday.

God, we thank you that you have your hand over our lives. We thank You for Your protection. We thank you for the prosperity of our lives. We thank you for the gifts that you have given us. Or today, we pray that we are generous, that we are good managers that we steward the gifts that you have given us correctly. May we be the kind of community that pours out that others around us, directly and indirectly, feel your goodness; we thank you for the opportunity to change lives through your testimony. We asked that we are the hands and feet of Jesus. We thank you, and we pray this all in your son’s mighty name. Amen.