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{Since the Heavenly Trade Is the Best Trade…
Exhortation to Good Traders in Christianity
Advice: Lay Out for God
To Lay Out for God Is Reasonable Work}
It is reasonable work to lay out for God. He deserves it and it is His due. All your mercies are His property. “Therefore, I will take back My grain at harvest time And My new wine in its season. I will also take away My wool and My flax Given to cover her nakedness” (Hosea 2:9 NASB). Though God gives His people the use of mercy,1550 He retains the ownership of it in His own hand. God is the Alpha, and should be the Omega. He is the source of all our mercies, and thus it is reasonable that He should be the purpose of all our mercies [as we use them]. “Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow” (James 1:17 NASB). And, as beams come from the sun, so all gifts come from God’s bounty; they are His particular handiwork. Augustine said that all his goods were gifts from God and all our good is either Himself or what comes from Him. Both trading and thriving are from Him and should also be for Him; both principal and interest are God’s own (Matthew 25:27).1551 If you do not lay out your mercies for God, you rob Him of His due. Your mercies are the Lord’s; His ownership consists not only in His ownership of your mercies, but also by your acknowledgment that they are His and your acting accordingly. Christian, when you gave up yourself to the Lord, you also gave up all your property, concerns, and abilities as well (1 Corinthians 3:23).1552 To keep back any part of your all from God is to lie to the Holy Spirit.1553 “But Peter said, ‘Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and keep back part of the price of the land for yourself?’” (Acts 5:3 NKJV). Reconciliation with God comes with no lower terms that what Ahab yielded to Ben-hadad: “The king of Israel replied, ‘It is according to your word, my lord, O king; I am yours, and all that I have’” (1 Kings 20:4 NASB). If you are not your own (1 Corinthians 6:19),1554 much less is anything you possess absolutely yours. God gives His people only a conditional title to all things beneath Himself, and only so far as it suits His pleasure, purposes, and glory. To keep back any part of your abilities or assets from God, when, by His Word or providence, He calls for it to be used for His service, Name, or people, is hypocrisy, lying, fraud, and rebellion. It is contrary to the Lord’s undoubted ownership, by creation, redemption, and your own grant (Hosea 2:8).1555
Besides, you did not receive your mercies as owners, but as stewards, to keep and use them for Him, and according to His instruction. “As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace” (1 Peter 4:10 ESV). It does not matter if the gift is by grace or a gift of grace, inward or outward, spiritual or material, it does not matter—it is something you have received and you must be a good steward of it. All you have are God’s gifts; your abundance is from His bounty; thus they are bestowed on you in trust, allocated to His use and pleasure, and are things for which you must give an account.
1550Ashwood’s use of mercy here encompasses all we are, have, possess, and have use of. Of ourselves, we deserve nothing but instant death and Hell. Every breath and every heartbeat is of mercy, to say nothing of the salvation that is from Jesus Christ alone.
1551“Then you ought to have put my money in the bank, and on my arrival I would have received my money back with interest” (Matthew 25:27 NASB).
1552“And you belong to Christ; and Christ belongs to God” (1 Corinthians 3:23 NASB). Ashwood referenced 2 Corinthians 5:8, but that verse does not fit the context.
1553When Ananias kept back part of the sales proceeds, he did not lie to the Holy Spirit. As Peter said, relative to earthly matters, the proceeds were still Ananias’s own. Ananias did lie to the Holy Spirit when he lied to the Church of Jesus Christ about the amount of his gift. Thus, Ashwood’s assertion that keeping back any part of our all is lying to the Holy Spirit is not true. At the same time, it is still sinful, a form of stealing and, given our professed commitment to Christ, vow-breaking.
1554“Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?” (1 Corinthians 6:19 NASB).
1555“And she did not know that it was I who gave her the grain, the wine, and the oil, and who lavished on her silver and gold, which they used for Baal” (Hosea 2:8 ESV).
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