Today's Passage - Luke 16:1-8

River of Life Christian Church ︳www.rolcc.net/english Luke 16:1-8   Jesus told his disciples: 'There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions.  So he called him in and asked him, "What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you cannot be manager any longer."  The manager said to himself, 'What shall I do now?  My master is taking away my job.  I'm not strong enough to dig, and I'm ashamed to beg - I know what I'll do so that, when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses.'  So he called in each one of his master's debtors.  He asked the first, "How much do you owe my master?"  "Eight hundred gallons of olive oil," he replied.  The manager told him, "Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it four hundred."  Then he asked the second, "And how much do you owe?"  "A thousand bushels of wheat," he replied.  He told him, "Take your bill and make it eight hundred."  The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly.  For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light.   The manager in this passage was described as "dishonest," so what he had done was undesirable and the Lord doesn't want us to learn from him.  So, why was he described as dishonest?   First, he wasted the master's money; second, he modified the master's bills and caused the master to loose money; thus, he was really a dishonest manager.  But then, Lord praised him for being shrewd, and there are three reasons: first, he recognized his own situation, and he knew that he couldn't do much by his own might if he loses his job; second, he recognized his opportunity and he needed to plan for his future while he was still the manager; third, he knew the use for money, and even though his ways were wrong, he did know how to use money to make friends in order to secure his own future.  What the Lord meant was, if this dishonest manager knew how to use dishonest ways to seek for his future refuge, what about us, the children of light?  Shouldn't we value things with eternal value even more, and use the right ways to make deposit to our account of eternity?   How do we make an effort on spiritual matters?  First, we need to spend time to read God's Word.  The Bible says that God's Word is the food for our spiritual life.  If we don't read the Bible for a long time, our spiritual life will wither.  Many believers never read the Bible and only depend on Sunday service sermons.  The Sunday sermons, however, are shorter than 30 minutes, which add up to less than 26 hours a year.  Consider the skipped services due to sickness, business trip, vacation, laziness, the time spent on listening to sermons might be less than 24 hours.  No wonder our spiritual life is not healthy and strong.  Second, we must spend time to pray, because some have said that prayer in the spiritual breathing.  Without breathing, a body will die very soon.  In the same way, our spiritual life needs to have such eagerness.  We need to spend time to get close to God through prayer, so that God's Word will become the momentum and blessing in our life.     Pray with Pastor Tong           Lord, please place spiritual shrewdness and eagerness in our heart, so that in our daily life we would pursue spiritual matters, and have wisdom in spiritual matters that will overtake the wisdom of people of the world.  We will experience your abundance and power in our daily life because we know you.  I thank you and I pray in the victorious name of Jesus, amen!