Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will never fail, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Luke 12:33-34)

My daughter Ellison and I were at Universal Studios standing in line for a Minions ride that had a consistently low 5 minute wait. As the doors swung open for our turn, it was clear there were too many people in our row. Either us or the party behind would have to wait another round. Ellison offered to let the other family go ahead of us.

Then, to our surprise and delight, an employee gave us an Express Pass to cut to the front of the line on the best ride in the park (Hagrid's rollercoaster) which had a minimum wait of 120 minutes that day.

Needless to say, we were ecstatic about the ride. But I was even more excited for the opportunity to talk with Ellison about eternal rewards. I read her today’s passage and explained th...

…see that you also excel in this grace of giving. I am not commanding you, but I want to test the sincerity of your love by comparing it with the earnestness of others. For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich. (2 Corinthians 8:7-9)

I wince whenever I hear pastors urge their congregations to “tithe.” Why? Because we Christians aren’t under the Mosaic Law that instituted the tithe (more here if you’re interested). Believers under Jesus’s New Covenant are not given a rule for giving. We are given an example: Christ himself.

That’s what Paul is getting at in today’s passage. He encourages us to “excel in this grace of giving,” and roots that call in “the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,” who “for your sake…became poor.” 

That brings us to the third biblical principle for stewarding the income we earn at work: We are called to give out of what Christ has given us. And beca...

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also….No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. (Matthew 6:21, 24)

In one of The Hunger Games novels, the characters are placed into a tropic arena where they are forced to survive and fight to the death. One of the warriors is tempted by the allure of her surroundings until she realizes that “everything in this pretty place — the luscious fruit dangling from the bushes, the water in the crystalline streams, even the scent of the flowers when inhaled too directly — is deadly poisonous” and designed to kill her.

That’s a pretty good picture of how God’s Word describes money: tantalizing but toxic. Which is why God calls us to surrender it to him. That brings us to the second biblical principle for stewarding the financial fruit of your labor: God doesn't need your money, but he wants your heart before mo...

 And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. (2 Corinthians 9:8)

Work and money are inextricably linked. So over the next four weeks, I’ll unpack four biblical principles for honoring God with your income—whether you’re barely making ends meet or enjoying far more than your “daily bread.” 

Here’s the first: We are free to enjoy the fruit of our labor—but the primary purpose of abundance is to bless others.

1 Timothy 6:17 makes the first half of that statement clear. After warning Timothy not to put his “hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God,” Paul says it is that same God “who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.”

But Paul is even clearer that the primary purpose of our abundance is to bless others. In 2 Corinthians 9:8, he implies that abundance is anything beyond what you “need” to “abound in every good work” God has called you to. 

With t...