Jesus taught his disciples a lot about money. The subject comes up in sixteen of his thirty-eight parables. This is remarkable since Jesus seemed to be unconcerned about his personal finances and wealth. He taught his followers not to worry about money, but to simply trust God to supply our needs. He gave generously to the poor, and encouraged his followers to do the same.

Money tries to make a claim upon our lives, and, if we do not resist its pull, we may end up following its dictates instead of obeying Jesus.

Our Lord also said that the way we handle our finances reflects our inner condition.

“If you are faithful in little things, you will be faithful in large ones. But if you are dishonest in little things, you won’t be honest with greater responsibilities. 11  And if you are untrustworthy about worldly wealth, who will trust you with the true riches of heaven? 12  And if you are not faithful with other people’s things, why should you be trusted with things of your own? 13  “No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” Luke 16:10-13 (NLT)

From this micro teaching on money, we can extract the following principles.

• Money is a “little thing” in God’s eyes. This means we must guard against it becoming a “big thing” to us.
• Unfaithfulness and dishonesty with regard to money reveals an inner heart condition that will affect every area of our lives.
• God will entrust us more and more with those things which are truly valuable in his kingdom, when we prove faithful with handling money.
• Money pulls at us so strongly that God requires us to “hate” it. In other words, we must consciously put God and his will above the pull of wealth and the desire for the comforts, security, and prestige it offers.

The condition of our souls is reflected in the way we handle money. If our finances are in disarray from God’s perspective, something is amiss in our relationship with money.

The key areas we will look at in articles following in this series will be:

1. What does money represent?
2. Whose money is it, mine or God’s?
3. What are my spending priorities and do they line up with what the Bible teaches? In other words, am I being faithful and wise with money?
4. Am I obeying God when it comes to tithing and being generous?

If we are handling money unwisely, it is sometimes the result of a lack of self-control. We use money to satisfy our greed and lusts, instead of using it wisely. Sometimes we lack wisdom and foresight, failing to understand that we must live within our means and give ourselves some “margin” so that we have something extra set aside for unforeseen or unexpected expenses. Maybe we do not make enough money to meet our legitimate needs. That is another problem. Many times people fail to prioritize what they do with their money, failing to give a proper amount to God and his kingdom work. This leads to all sorts of problems. God wants us to be generous to the poor and those in need, too. Generosity is perhaps one of the greatest secrets to having all that we need.

The crux of the matter is this: how we spend our money reveals what we truly value in life.

What comes first – God, our car, our home, clothes, food, entertainment, vacation? If we place anything in front of God, we are heading for trouble! Are we generous or hoarders? Are we savers or spenders? Are we free or fearful? Are we content or never quite have enough? The answers to these questions reveal a lot about us and our relationship to God. If you suspect that something is out of kilter and you need help with handling your finances, you will want to read the next several articles. Even if you handle money well, the following articles in this series may help you.