Immerse: Messiah - Flipbook - Page 53
15:31–16:16
Luke–ACTS
41
“His father said to him, ‘Look, dear son, you have always stayed by me,
and everything I have is yours. We had to celebrate this happy day. For
your brother was dead and has come back to life! He was lost, but now
he is found!’”
Jesus told this story to his disciples: “There was a certain rich man who had
a manager handling his affairs. One day a report came that the manager
was wasting his employer’s money. So the employer called him in and said,
‘What’s this I hear about you? Get your report in order, because you are
going to be fired.’
“The manager thought to himself, ‘Now what? My boss has fired me.
I don’t have the strength to dig ditches, and I’m too proud to beg. Ah,
I know how to ensure that I’ll have plenty of friends who will give me a
home when I am fired.’
“So he invited each person who owed money to his employer to come
and discuss the situation. He asked the first one, ‘How much do you owe
him?’ The man replied, ‘I owe him 800 gallons of olive oil.’ So the manager
told him, ‘Take the bill and quickly change it to 400 gallons.’
“‘And how much do you owe my employer?’ he asked the next man. ‘I
owe him 1,000 bushels of wheat,’ was the reply. ‘Here,’ the manager said,
‘take the bill and change it to 800 bushels.’
“The rich man had to admire the dishonest rascal for being so shrewd.
And it is true that the children of this world are more shrewd in dealing
with the world around them than are the children of the light. Here’s the
lesson: Use your worldly resources to benefit others and make friends.
Then, when your possessions are gone, they will welcome you to an eternal home.
“If you are faithful in little things, you will be faithful in large ones. But if
you are dishonest in little things, you won’t be honest with greater responsibilities. And if you are untrustworthy about worldly wealth, who will
trust you with the true riches of heaven? And if you are not faithful with
other people’s things, why should you be trusted with things of your own?
“No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other;
you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God
and be enslaved to money.”
The Pharisees, who dearly loved their money, heard all this and scoffed
at him. Then he said to them, “You like to appear righteous in public, but
God knows your hearts. What this world honors is detestable in the sight
of God.
“Until John the Baptist, the law of Moses and the messages of the
prophets were your guides. But now the Good News of the Kingdom of
