Who Has Charge of Your Money-Box?

 •  3 min. read  •  grade level: 8
 
“There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth; and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty” (Prov. 11:2424There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth; and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty. (Proverbs 11:24)).
I fancy I hear the reader exclaim, “What a funny title! Whatever can it mean?”
Just listen to me while I relate an incident that happened some years ago. A Christian father had in his keeping the money boxes of his two little children. They were kept locked, and the children didn’t know how much was in them. One of them came to his father one day, and said that he would like to get a present for his mother on her birthday, which was drawing near. His father explained to him that it would not be a present from him, unless he paid for it out of his own money. The child was quite willing to do so. Soon after, the father took the boy into a store to buy the present. They looked around, and at last the little fellow selected an article. On hearing the price, the father told him that he had not enough money to pay for it, and that he must choose something else. In a short time he did so. When the price was known, the father told the child that he would be able to pay for that, but that it would take the most of his money. The dear little fellow didn’t mind that in the least, but said he would like to get that for his mother. It was bought, paid for out of the boy’s money, and given to the mother on her birthday.
The father was so much pleased with the unselfishness shown in the matter, and at the affection manifested by the boy for his mother, that he determined that the child should not be a loser. From time to time the father slipped into his money-box a penny, sometimes a larger coin, and so on, till, without the child’s knowing it, the amount was more than replaced.
Dear fellow-believer, is there no lesson in the foregoing for you and for me?
If the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and (through grace) our God and our Father (John 20:1717Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God. (John 20:17)) sees us spending on ourselves and our own interests, the most of what He has entrusted us with as His Stewards (1 Cor. 4:22Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful. (1 Corinthians 4:2)), will He not very likely do what He did as recorded in Haggai 1:3-11; 2:15-173Then came the word of the Lord by Haggai the prophet, saying, 4Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your cieled houses, and this house lie waste? 5Now therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts; Consider your ways. 6Ye have sown much, and bring in little; ye eat, but ye have not enough; ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; ye clothe you, but there is none warm; and he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes. 7Thus saith the Lord of hosts; Consider your ways. 8Go up to the mountain, and bring wood, and build the house; and I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified, saith the Lord. 9Ye looked for much, and, lo, it came to little; and when ye brought it home, I did blow upon it. Why? saith the Lord of hosts. Because of mine house that is waste, and ye run every man unto his own house. 10Therefore the heaven over you is stayed from dew, and the earth is stayed from her fruit. 11And I called for a drought upon the land, and upon the mountains, and upon the corn, and upon the new wine, and upon the oil, and upon that which the ground bringeth forth, and upon men, and upon cattle, and upon all the labor of the hands. (Haggai 1:3‑11)
15And now, I pray you, consider from this day and upward, from before a stone was laid upon a stone in the temple of the Lord: 16Since those days were, when one came to an heap of twenty measures, there were but ten: when one came to the pressfat for to draw out fifty vessels out of the press, there were but twenty. 17I smote you with blasting and with mildew and with hail in all the labors of your hands; yet ye turned not to me, saith the Lord. (Haggai 2:15‑17)? Now Haggai 1:12-14; 2:18-1912Then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, with all the remnant of the people, obeyed the voice of the Lord their God, and the words of Haggai the prophet, as the Lord their God had sent him, and the people did fear before the Lord. 13Then spake Haggai the Lord's messenger in the Lord's message unto the people, saying, I am with you, saith the Lord. 14And the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people; and they came and did work in the house of the Lord of hosts, their God, (Haggai 1:12‑14)
18Consider now from this day and upward, from the four and twentieth day of the ninth month, even from the day that the foundation of the Lord's temple was laid, consider it. 19Is the seed yet in the barn? yea, as yet the vine, and the fig tree, and the pomegranate, and the olive tree, hath not brought forth: from this day will I bless you. (Haggai 2:18‑19) shows us the result of the Word of the Lord having taken effect in the hearts and consciences of the people.
“The love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead; and that He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them, and rose again” (2 Cor. 5:14-1514For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: 15And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again. (2 Corinthians 5:14‑15)).
O what a debt I owe
To Him who shed His blood,
And cleansed my soul and gave me power
To stand before His God.
Saviour and Lord, I own
The riches of Thy grace;
For I can call Thy God, my God -
Can bow before His face.
Thy Father, too, above,
I worship as my own;
Who gave with Thee the Spirit’s cry,
To me a son foreknown.
Again, just ponder over this magnificent verse: “My God shall abundantly supply all your need according to His riches, in glory in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:1919But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:19) JND). What an inexhaustible amount, in such safe keeping and in such a money-box!