Two Key Life Values

There are two key life values that we can learn from this dishonest steward:

1. He valued long term benefits above short term gains.
This dishonest steward recognized the long term benefits he would gain when he gave “discounts” to the debts. He used the situation to prepare for his long term survival after he left his master. The lesson we can learn from this is to value the things that has long term benefits and are lasting. The only things that have long term benefits and are lasting are the things of God, not the things of this world. The things of this world will pass away and be gone.

Moses is an example for us to follow. Hebrew 11:24-26 tells us that “by faith Moses, when he became of age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt; for he looked to the reward.” Moses valued the eternal rewards. He chose to forego the temporal riches that he could enjoy as the son of the Pharoah’s daughter and went for the eternal things of God. We should not value the things of today for short term gains and forego the things of eternal. Don’t go for the temporal.

2 Corinthians 4:17-18; For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

Moses looked ahead to his eternal rewards and we should be, too. Everyday we have to make decisions leading to short or long term gains. Are there things in your life today where you have to make a choice at the crossroad to choose things of this world versus the things of the kingdom of God?

In some Asian countries, monkey’s brains are considered a delicacy. The hunters hunt the monkeys by making use of their greed for peanuts and banana. They set a trap for these monkeys. In the small cage, they left peanuts and bananas for the monkey. The monkey will then stretch its hand through the small hole to take the food. When the monkey saw the approach of the hunter, it has to make a decision – to let go of the food or to hold on to it. By letting go of the food from its hand, it saves its brain. By holding on, its brain is being served on a plate to a hungry soul.

What will be your choice if you are the monkey? To hold on to the temporal things of the world or to let go and seek the eternal treasures of God?

Philippians 3:7-11; But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ – the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.