Day 40 – Finish Faithful

Verse of the Day

Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful. 1 Corinthians 4:2 (ESV)

Action Step

Continue your life of stewardship by daily fostering your relationship with the Lord.

 Summary

Let’s finish how we started. What’s the goal? In this episode we are reminded of the ultimate goal of stewardship. We are also challenged to create daily habits that will foster our relationship with the Lord.

Read more...

Day 39 – Teach Your Kids How to Make a Deal

Verse of the Day

34 Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned thirty-one years in Jerusalem. 2 And he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, and walked in the ways of David his father; and he did not turn aside to the right hand or to the left. 3 For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet a boy, he began to seek the God of David his father, and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of the high places, the Asherim, and the carved and the metal images. 2 Chronicles 34:1–3 (ESV)

Action Step

Find a way for your kids to participate in business. When you make a major purchase, allow them to sit-in on making the deal. When they get ready to make a purchase, help them in the process.

Summary

Don’t exasperate your children, but have high expectations for them. In this episode Brian gives some examples of how students an do great things in business and they can learn how to negotiate prices.

Read more...

Day 38 – Open A Kid Account

Verse of the Day

Hear, my son, your father’s instruction, and forsake not your mother’s teaching, for they are a graceful garland for your head and pendants for your neck. Proverbs 1:8–9 (ESV)

Action Step

Open your child an account so they can learn to earn, budget, save, and spend their own money.

 Summary

Opening your child his or her own bank account is a great way to teach them stewardship. Be sure to help them count their money and track spending. Helping them to balance the account is a way to teach budgeting.
 

Read more...

Day 37 – STOP Giving Your Kids an Allowance

Verse of the Day

Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it. Pro. 22:6

Action Step

Stop giving your children an allowance and/or buying them what they want when they want it. Teach them to earn, budget, save and spend their own money.

Read more...

Day 36 – Teaching Stewardship to Your Children

Verse of the Day

7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

Deuteronomy 6:7–9 (ESV)

Action Step

Talk regularly about stewardship with your children. Allow them to see how Biblical stewardship informs your decisions as a family. Look for ways for your children to participate in stewardship with you.

Summary

How do you make sure that Biblical stewardship is not just a personal decision, but becomes a generational principle with your children? We must model, teach, and find ways for our children to participate. 

Read more...

Day 35 – The Rhythm of Work and Rest

Verse of the Day

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. Exodus 20:8–11 (ESV)

Action Step

Make your sabbath rest truly productive. Rest the body and feed the soul with worship.

Summary

God wants us to work hard, but He also calls us to rest productively. Sabbath is not just time to do nothing. To truly recharge you need to not only rest the body, but refresh your soul.

Read more...

Day 33 – Calling, Wiring, and Working

Verse of the Day

31 The Lord said to Moses, 2 “See, I have called by name Bezalel the son of Uri, son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, 3 and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with ability and intelligence, with knowledge and all craftsmanship, 4 to devise artistic designs, to work in gold, silver, and bronze, 5 in cutting stones for setting, and in carving wood, to work in every craft. Exodus 31:1–5 (ESV)

Action Step

Use some tools and some counsel to help you find your wiring and your calling.

Summary

If your calling and your wiring (personality) fit where you are working; you will LOVE your job! Brian mentions an online tool you can use to help you become more self-aware. Try this out: https://www.16personalities.com/

Read more...

Day 32 – How to Work for a Bad Boss

Verse of the Day

22 Bondservants, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not by way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. 23 Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, 24 knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. 25 For the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done, and there is no partiality. Colossians 3:22–25 (ESV)

Action Step

Work for the Lord today. He’s the BOSS! Foster an attitude about your work that you are ultimately accountable to God.

Summary

We’ve all worked for some great people and some BAD BOSSES. So how do you respond when you have a bad boss? What does the Bible say about it? Here is how we are to respond even when the people we work for make the workday tough.

Read more...

Day 31 – The Gift of a Job Your Enjoy

Verse of the Day

18 Behold, what I have seen to be good and fitting is to eat and drink and find enjoyment in all the toil with which one toils under the sun the few days of his life that God has given him, for this is his lot. 19 Everyone also to whom God has given wealth and possessions and power to enjoy them, and to accept his lot and rejoice in his toil—this is the gift of God. Ecc. 5:18-19

Action Step

Use Ecclesiastes 5:18-19 as a blueprint to start praying for God to help you enjoy your job. 

Summary

It is hard to wake up everyday dreading going to work. Sometimes enjoying work is not as much about changing jobs as it is about changing your perspective. Here is a powerful prayer asking God to help you begin to enjoy your job. This may be the start of big things for you.

Read more...

Day 30 – Thorns and Thistles

Verse of the Day

Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Genesis 3:18–19 (ESV)

Action Step

Ask God to help you see how the curse has affected your work and how you can act in a redemptive way where you are.

Summary

Do you hate your job? A lot of people think that part of the curse is that we have to work. Work is not the curse. Work that doesn’t work, that’s the curse. Here’s what’s wrong with your job!

Read more...