Maybe this has happened to you. You’re dining at a fast food restaurant with your family and you bring what everyone ordered back to the table and begin to pass out the food. While doing so, you help yourself to one of the French fries you placed in front of your child and he loudly protests, “Those are mine!”
What an interesting moment. You paid for the meal, yet somehow the child has now become the sole proprietor and owner of the food. He didn’t do a thing to provide it, yet it is now his to defend with all his effort.
Not Just Children
This doesn’t happen only in the lives of our children. We can do the same thing with God. All that we have is his. He gives us the abilities to make what we make and have what we have, yet we still hoard it like it is ours. He blesses us with blessings far greater than an order of French fries and often, just like a child, when he asks us to give it back to him we loudly protest, “Those are mine!”
A Wake Up Call
When the horn blew in the Year of Jubilee, it signaled a fresh start. Our challenging economic times have sounded not a horn but an alarm signaling our need of a fresh start. It reminds us of Jesus’ command not to lay up for ourselves treasures on earth for they can rust, be stolen, and quickly lose their value. We must lay up treasures in Heaven and in so doing loudly proclaim, “God, these are yours because I am yours!” |L
Kevin Ingram is the president of Manhattan Christian College. He and his wife Lisa have been married for 26 years and have two children: Lauren and Tyler. After graduating from MCC in 1986 he served in two different ministries in western Kansas before coming to work at MCC.
