This devotional was recently featured in the Summer 2008 issue of “The Gift”, a quarterly journal published by TwoShirts.org.

Confessions of a Tightwad
By Brian Stevenson

Some people have said that admitting your problem is the first step to recovery. I’m desperate, so let’s give it a shot, “Hello, my name is Brian, and I’m a tightwad.” Here are some telltale signs of a tightwad:

1. We will agonize over the idea of buying something, then agonize a second time after the money has been spent.
2. When we go to a restaurant with friends we breakdown the cost of every appetizer and divvy up the cost down to the penny.
3. If we find one small thing wrong with a product or service, we will insist they waive all or part of the bill rather than give an opportunity to correct what’s wrong.

We tightwads might outwardly claim noble titles such as “frugal” or “thrifty”. However, we pass up purchases not because we enjoy saving money but because we hate to part with our cash. We will often abstain from buying material things not because we are striving to live a simple life, but because we find security when we hoard our money. In other words, tightwads are dominated by a sense of fear.

I believe that God has spoken words of encouragement for us in Psalms 112. When you read this passage, look for three things: 1. How do we relate to the LORD? 2. What do we receive from the LORD? 3. What is our response to the provision of the LORD?

Psalms 112:1-10
1 Praise the LORD.
Blessed is the man who fears the LORD,
who finds great delight in his commands.

2 His children will be mighty in the land;
the generation of the upright will be blessed.

3 Wealth and riches are in his house,
and his righteousness endures forever.

4 Even in darkness light dawns for the upright,
for the gracious and compassionate and righteous man.

5 Good will come to him who is generous and lends freely,
who conducts his affairs with justice.

6 Surely he will never be shaken;
a righteous man will be remembered forever.

7 He will have no fear of bad news;
his heart is steadfast, trusting in the LORD.

8 His heart is secure, he will have no fear;
in the end he will look in triumph on his foes.

9 He has scattered abroad his gifts to the poor,
his righteousness endures forever;
his horn will be lifted high in honor.

10 The wicked man will see and be vexed,
he will gnash his teeth and waste away;
the longings of the wicked will come to nothing.

The author of this Psalm draws our attention to a righteous person. This righteous person relates to the Lord with praise, reverence, and delighting in His commands. In other words, the righteous have a relationship with God that is full of life. In Psalm 119 we read how the words of the Lord are sweeter than honey! Our relationship with God is not supposed to be bland or boring; it is supposed to be enjoyed.

The righteous receive several things from their relationship with God; blessings, provision for our needs, and sense of security. God does not promise a smooth-sailing life; he promises to be with us in all of our circumstances. The righteous still go through darkness (v. 4) and get bad news (v. 7). The difference is that when a righteous person places their trust in the Lord, they will have no fear during their circumstances. In other words, our foundation should be built on the Lord, not our wealth.

The righteous respond to their relationship with the Lord in several ways. They are generous, compassionate, and do what is right. The righteous simply do what they see their Father doing. Since they have placed their trust in the Lord, they are now free to respond generously with all of the resources they are stewarding.

Take some time to meditate on your relationship with God. If it has been a little dry lately, consider a reading one Psalm each day for the next eight days (Psalm 92, 103, 104, 106, 111, 146, 147, 148). Ask yourself, “Where am I finding security; in my money or in the Lord?” Remind yourself that your greatest treasure and source of security is not your money, but rather God Himself. When we begin to embrace the immeasurable treasures of our Lord, our natural response is to give freely and generously.

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Brian Stevenson is a Twoshirts.org member and student at Vineyard Leadership Institute. He is married to his wife Tanya and together they live in Columbus, Ohio.

I was invited to participate in a panel discussion for a Baptists for Life youth event. Each year, they have a high school lock-in for some of the baptist churches in the area. In the early part of the evening, I was on this panel; then for 5 hours I played games at Magic Mountain!

Here is Panel Question #2:

You are in a relationship with a very nice young woman that you met in your youth group. The two of you have been dating for about 1 year and you really like each other, you have even talked about getting married someday. One evening while your parents are out with friends the two of you are home alone. After several minutes of “making out” your girlfriend says that she thinks that the two of you are ready to “take the next step in your relationship and sleep together”. You do believe that this is the person that God will have you marry so it would be okay right? What should you do?

This WOULD have been my answer (but we ran out of time):

Can I have a show of hands… How many of you have heard of Song of Songs or Song of Solomon? How many have read some or all of it? What’s the book about?

Love, marriage, sex…

I remember reading this book when I was about your age and thought, “Whoa, who put this in the Bible!?” In Chapter 4, I would read the passages that talk about all the female body parts and wonder, “Your eyes are like doves?” “Your hair is like a flock of goats?” “Your teeth are like a flock of sheep?” “Your neck is like a tower?” How many of you have complemented your girlfriend by saying, “Sweety, your hair is so nice; it’s like a flock of goats.” Not so much.

Then I’d read passages like, “Your lips drop sweetness like a honeycomb” and I’d be like, “Yeah, now we’re getting to the good stuff!”

But, this book isn’t just about the physical features we admire in the opposite sex. The underlying themes in this book are courtship, marriage, and the intimacy found within the marriage relationship.

Throughout their courtship in chapters 1 through 3, they modeled a healthy relationship that was filled with love, excitement, and anticipation for the future. Then in chapter 4 after their wedding, the newly married couple begins to consummate their union. The husband says to his bride, “You are my private garden, my treasure, my bride, a secluded spring, a hidden fountain.”

What do you think the man meant when he said: Private garden, secluded spring, and hidden fountain? There were some parts of their relationship that were still a mystery and had yet to be explored and enjoyed. I want you to remember that your girlfriend is treasure from God. Certain parts of that treasure are to remain unexplored until you are joined together in marriage.

I was invited to participate in a panel discussion for a Baptists for Life youth event. Each year, they have a high school lock-in for some of the baptist churches in the area. In the early part of the evening, I was on this panel; then for 5 hours I played games at Magic Mountain!

Here is Panel Question #1:

My 16 year old friend who recently broke up with her boyfriend just found out that she is 8 weeks pregnant. She has not yet told her parents, who are going to be very upset, and her ex-boyfriend tells her that “it’s not even really a baby yet, just have an abortion”. What should I tell her? Is a baby alive at 8 weeks of age?

Here was my response:

I’d like to read a Psalm to you. This is a song of David.

Psalm 139:13-16
13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

16 your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.

Did you notice a recurring theme in this song? Seven times the word YOU was used as he sings this song to God. David is intentionally pointing upward and gives God the credit for three things:

1) He is created by God
David didn’t give credit to his parents for his existence; it was God who knit him together. At times we’ll say a pregnancy is unintentional or accidental, but God doesn’t make mistakes.

2) God’s creation is wonderful.
David unleashes his praise to God saying, “Your works are wonderful, I know that full well!” Does he sound unsure about that? Anything that God creates is wonderful.

3) God has an intimate relationship with his creation.
Even before David understood that he had a relationship with God, God already had an intimate relationship with David. This relationship started even before he took his first breath! God knew everything about David’s body, his personality, his character, and his inmost being. But it didn’t stop there; God knew everything about David’s future before any of it happened.

Psalm 139 isn’t so much about David as it is about the sovereignty of God. When we are faced with difficult circumstances in life, it’s easy to focus on ourselves and make a decision that will make things easier on us. But, before you make up your mind about what do you with a pregnancy, I challenge you to enlarge your perspective to take into consideration God’s sovereign plan. God doesn’t make mistakes.

Colossians 3:13
Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.

There are several benefits of forgiveness. It can release us from the bondage of bitterness, it can release the other person from the guilt they may feel, and it can heal relationships. Despite these wonderful benefits of forgiveness, why do we forgive? Paul tells us plainly that we are to “forgive as the Lord forgave you.” We should forgive because we are forgiven.

It sounds simple, but it’s complicated. In the midst of our fevered emotions and the unfortunate events that triggered everything, we begin to talk ourselves out of forgiveness because our situation is somehow “different”. We may want to hold on to these broken feelings so we can stay in control. Ironically, we loose control when we hold onto those feelings. We ultimately become a slave to the painful memories that we rehearse over and over in our head.

In the surrounding verses, Paul instructs us about virtues that we should “put on” like clothing. He says, “clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience…and over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.” Love has the ability to unify anything. When Jesus said to love our enemy, he knew that love would bring about compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. How could we not forgive someone if all of these virtues are flowing out of us when we love?

The word “forgive” has a revealing Greek root. It comes from “Apoluo” which means to “set free” or to “let go”. What are you holding onto and refusing to let go? Forgiveness is about setting free the person that offended you. It’s about releasing the memory that has been controlling your mind. We find incredible freedom in forgiveness. Above all, we give grace to others because it was given to us first. We must be dispensers of God’s grace and overcome evil with good.

Matthew 7:7-8
“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.”

Instead of writing a devotional this week, I’m going to give you an excerpt from John Wimber’s book, Power Healing. It’s one of the many first-hand stories of God using people to heal the sick today:

In 1983 I [John Wimber] had an experience in Goteborg, Sweden, that illustrates the power of touch. I was speaking (through an interpreter) at a four-day healing conference in a Baptist church. There were 300 people in attendance, and for the first two days they were quite reserved, not demonstrating much of a response to my teaching. On the third day of the conference I sense that God wanted to heal a woman in the audience who had cancer in her left breast. I said, ‘I believe God wants to heal a woman who has cancer in the left breast.’

Immediately a lady in the balcony stood up and said that she had been interceding and fasting several days for a woman in San Francisco who had cancer in her left breast. Her appeal was eloquent and compelling, but I sensed that the woman for whom I had the word of knowledge was in the audience. So I said, ‘This is not what the Lord is doing at this moment.’ I then said ‘This woman is in the room now. Only this morning she was released from the hospital. She is sixty years old [I cannot remember her exact age today], and she is seated directly in front of me and slightly to the right.’

In response, a woman in a dark, full-length wool coat stood up and said in Swedish, ‘It’s me, it’s me.’ I asked her to come forward for prayer, and as she did I asked for volunteers to pray for her.

Three men from the first row came forward, two standing behind the woman and one in front of her. I asked the woman if she would mind folding her hands over her breast, and allowing one of the men to put his hands on her hands. She agreed to do it. (I ask permission to lay hands on people to show respect for their personhood.) The men behind her placed their hands on her shoulders. Then I stepped back and told them to wait for me to pray.

But before the interpreter could give them my instructions I felt a faith command welling up in me, and I yelled in English, ‘Be healed in the name of Jesus.’ Hardly had the words left my mouth when the power of God came down on all four people; they began shaking and were knocked off their feet to the floor! It was as though the healing power of God went into the woman and out into the three men, or vice versa. The interpreter was so overwhelmed that she began speaking to me in Swedish and to the audience in English! All four rose weeping and praising God, the woman later reporting her healing.

John Wimber, Power Healing, pp. 196-197

Matthew 4:23
And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people.

This week, rather than writing a devotional, I am going to give you a paragraph from Richard Foster’s book titled, Streams of Living Water: Celebrating the Great Traditions of Christian Faith.

Now, Jesus went about proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and its available to all. He has demonstrated the reality of its presence. This dual action of proclamation and demonstration is found throughout the Gospels. “Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people” (Matt. 4:23). There it is: the proclamation of the presence of the kingdom and the demonstration of its life, in this case by the ministry of healing. He gave the same commission to the Twelve: “He sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal,” which is exactly what they did. “They departed and went through the villages, bringing the good news and curing diseases everywhere” (Luke 9:1-6). Again, proclamation and demonstration. He gave exactly the same mission to the larger group of seventy: “Cure the sick who are there, and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you’” (Luke 10:9).

Streams of Living Water: Celebrating the Great Traditions of Christian Faith, p. 15, Richard J. Foster

John 14:23
Jesus replied, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.”

Last week we learned from John 15 that we are to obey this command from Jesus, “Love each other as I have loved you.” John 14:23 says that our obedience will result in the Father loving us. When I initially read this, I said to myself, “What? I thought the Father loved the whole world before we loved him!” That is true, John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world…” Is the Bible contradicting itself? Not at all!

The love that is described in John 14:23 isn’t the result of our own religious efforts. This love is God’s “grace” (or favor/special blessing) that is poured out to those who abide in Christ. Paul talks about this love in Ephesians 1:5-6, “In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will… to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.” Did you catch the last part? Grace is freely available to us because it is found “in the One he loves.” The “One he loves” is Jesus! Since the Father loves the Son, and we abide (or remain in) the Son, we are loved and become his adopted sons.

Think about the Father/Son relationship for a moment. When the Father wants to leave something for his children, how does he do it? If we read on in Ephesians 1:13-14 it says, “…you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance…” Father’s will leave things for their children with an inheritance! According to Ephesians 1:14, the Holy Spirit was given to us as a “deposit” to guarantee our inheritance. A deposit is the equivalent of a promise. Jesus has promised to return for us because he left the Holy Spirit as a deposit.

When we read the rest of John 14:23 it says, “and we will come to him and make our home with him.” Not only did the Father and the Son leave us a deposit; they put that deposit within us in the form of the Holy Spirit! Ephesians 1:13 says, “Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit.” This seal is God’s signature of ownership and it has been stamped on our hearts when we make Jesus our King.

1 Peter 1:21
Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God.

There are two words in this passage that are very similar, “Believe” and “Faith”. If we look at this passage it the original Greek, these words are both derived from the same Greek word “Peitho” which means “to trust, have confidence, be confident.” To have faith in Jesus means to trust him as you would trust a parachute. Would you jump out of an airplane wearing a parachute if you didn’t trust that the parachute would save you? It’s easy to intellectually believe that a parachute could save someone because we’ve all seen how parachutes work. But when the parachute is strapped to your back as you stare thousands of feet down to earth, your intellectual belief of parachutes isn’t enough to jump out of the plane. It takes full confidence and trust! We need to trust Jesus with our life as we would trust a parachute with our life. We need to put on Jesus Christ and be confident in the jump to come.