The goal of this part of our study on the kingdom is to become better stewards of what our King has entrusted to us. As we have also addressed the last couple of weeks, sometimes spiritual fruit can be hard to measure, but not impossible. However, before we cover how we might judge our spiritual investments in more depth, let's go back to the management of our resources in the natural—especially the money we are entrusted with.

If we do not proactively rule over our money, it will rule over us, dominating our time and energy to get...

Last week we began addressing our responsibility to test the fruitfulness of ministries and missions in which we are investing the Lord's resources. In large operations such as charities, which are devoted to distributing material goods, this is much easier to measure than when we examine evangelistic and missionary outreaches.

I have asked numerous large audiences of Christians how many met the Lord through crusades, Christian television, tracts, or other such means of evangelism. Usually all of those combined were less than 5 percent of the audience. The other 95 percent responded that they had met the Lord...

Last week we addressed our responsibility to "put to the test those who call themselves apostles" (see Revelation 2:2), or who claim to be sent by the Lord. Certainly, some were offended by that, but they were probably the very ones that needed to be put to this test. What I am about to say will likewise offend many large churches, missionary organizations, and charities. I am not saying this to be critical or offend them, but to help them, which some will eventually understand.

We cannot be trusted with more until we properly manage what...

Before proceeding, I would like to address one more little stumbling block that hinders some Christians from sound financial planning. Because the Law of Moses forbade God's people from charging interest to a fellow Israelite, many feel that it is not right to do so today. If this is something you wrestle with, please consider this: The Lord's own teaching in the Parable of the Talents condemns those who do not at least get interest for what they have been entrusted with, and that does not conflict with the Law of Moses. The Law of Moses against usury was...

In Matthew 6:24, the Lord explained, "No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will hold to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon." As Christians, we should be absolutely committed to using our lives to serve God, not money. However, if we do not use some basic financial principles, we are likely to spend our lives serving money and being too entangled in it to serve God. Our goal should be to make money our servant, instead of spending our lives...