I have heard the “What Would Jesus Do?” (WWJD) slogan for some time. I used to work at a Christian bookstore and we sold more WWJD bracelets than I’d like to recall. Recently someone typed into the search engines, “Jesus handle my money” which made me think about things I’ve learned in the Bible regarding the life of Christ. There are elements to the question that we cannot answer due to the miraculous, but outside of the miraculous we can learn what Christ did and acted upon as revealed in the Bible. How would Jesus handle his money?

Jesus didn’t start his ministry when he was born. In fact he didn’t start it until he was considered an older man, which was around the age of thirty.   I’m a month shy of thirty and I’ll tell you that I’m glad that the culture and life expectancy are different now compared to the time of Christ. Remember that Jesus grew up in a Hebrew context with strong Greco-Roman influence. After being moved around by his Earthly father, Joseph, (due to the guidance of the God to do so) Jesus learned about carpentry and most likely apprenticed under Joseph. It is believed by some scholars that the carpentry that you and I think of was probably not the same thing as the carpentry in the time of Christ. More than likely stone work was also involved. For roughly fifteen or more years Jesus probably worked as a carpenter and probably was a well toned worker. Christ labored for his money before starting His ministry.

Upon starting His ministry Christ probably took the value of what He did have from being a carpenter and brought it directly into supporting his discipleship ministry within Israel.  Whatever He did with His money it would have been in a manner of submission to the direction of the Father through the Holy Spirit.  To clarify God the Father directed Christ through the Holy Spirit.  All three parts of the Godhead were involved with Christ’s earthly ministry.  Christ walked out a life of abiding as an example to His disciples.  They would watch Him abide and then, later, after Pentecost they would have understood what their ministry was to be like because they saw it first hand!

So what did that look like?  It looked like Christ praying, fellowshipping and relying on His relationship with God the Father.  It meant that instead of going around and doing miracles to make money multiply, miracles to keep them fed all of the time that He and the disciples lived a life of reliance on God.  The Believer today is still directed to do the same thing whether they make $20,000 a year or they make $2,000,000,000.00 a year. A life of abiding and reliance will lead to financial peace because the peace is not in the money, its in the resting in reliance.

Colossians 3:1-3 tells the Christian to set their mind on things above where Christ is seated in the heavenlies.  The lifestyle of Christ was set on the heavenlies where His father was seated.  There is nothing that Christ did that wasn’t within the framework of abiding, and that included money.

It is noted that Judas was the money keeper.  Christ, while abiding, let Judas manage the money.  Christ’s knowledge of Judas’ role had no effect on His rest in God the Father’s direction to have Judas handle the money.  If you’ve ever listened to a televangelist talk about Christ’s money, many of them have said Christ had an amazing amount of money, but the scriptures surely don’t record that.  Instead the Lord and the disciples simply lived by faith.

The believer who is financially focused and has stewardship on their heart and mind needs to live by faith as well.  There is nothing in the believer’s life that is outside of God’s ultimate ownership and the believer must rely on the Lord for every single penny.   How did Jesus handle His money?  With rest in God’s provision.  The money was always God’s and the life lived was always God’s.  Christ’s relationship with God was established: He was God’s son.  However, He focused on fellowship as well to keep the intimacy that was so vital to His life.  Take a moment to reflect on your relationship with God, in life, in finances and in fellowship.  Make sure your conscience is clear, and if so, understand that God will make it known what His plans are for you and your finances as you rest in Him.

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This entry was posted on Friday, August 31st, 2007 at 10:25 am and is filed under General, Taboo & Money (religion, sex, and politics). You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.