Your Money Is Not Your Own
Drawn from the teaching of Professor Gary S. Maxey · 2 min read
The second place the Holy Spirit often deals with a believer is money and belongings. Professor Gary Maxey draws on Luke 14:33, where Jesus says none of us can be his disciple unless we give up all we have.
The rich young ruler
In his book on the Highway of Holiness, he points to Matthew 19 and the rich young man who went away sorrowful. Professor Maxey explains that we must reach the place of understanding that our money is not ours to spend any way we like. We cannot pay a tithe and assume the rest is ours. We cannot buy goods because we feel like it or because everyone around us does.
He asks for radical stewardship. He does not say every believer must be a pauper, but that each should be willing to be one if that is God's will.
His own testimony
Professor Maxey describes God asking him, as a young man, whether he would serve for life with very few possessions. Would he serve when he had no money and when he could not feed himself adequately? He says the hunger pangs felt real as God spoke. With great agony he said yes.
The consequences have lasted. He reports that he owns no property, owns no personal vehicle and deliberately empties his bank account nearly every month. He says God has blessed him materially and provided repeatedly in ways that seemed miraculous. He has never asked about salary or bargained for pay when changing employment. He has asked his church deacons to lower his salary, and once succeeded.
He is careful to say this is not advice for others. Each of us is different. But he believes that if we follow the Spirit, God will eventually call every one of us to place our present and future money and every material thing under his control.
A challenge to the prosperity message
This teaching contradicts the idea that money is a sign of faith. Professor Maxey says elsewhere that the prosperity gospel has made God a servant to be commanded. Here he shows the opposite order.
A simple exercise
Open your bank statement and your phone's spending history. For each large item, ask whether you could say to God, "This is yours, so tell me what to do with it." Change one thing before the month ends.
Drawn from the teaching of Professor Gary S. Maxey.
