How's Your Cq?

There’s a story about a yuppie that met an accident. The 911 rescuers found him hysterical. “Oh, no! My Jaguar! My Jaguar!” he cried out. “Why worry about your car?” the rescuers said. “Look! Your arm got fractured because of the accident!” He looked at his arm and cried out, “Oh no! My Rolex! My Rolex!”

Jesus spoke a lot about money. 16 out of the 38 parables or stories of Christ were about finances. That means in 1 out of every 3 stories, Christ spoke on money.

In 1 out of every 10 verses in the Gospels, Jesus taught about financial management. Just imagine! There would be more verses about money that heaven and hell combined. Jesus talked more about money than heaven and hell.

Of course, money will not bring us to our final destination. That does not mean that if you are poor you will go to heaven or if you are rich you would go to hell. That’s not the point. The point is, how we spend shows what we value in life.

There are around 2,350 verses on wealth in the entire Bible. That’s twice as many as the verses on faith and prayer. It’s not that if you are poor you have less or no faith at all. That does not mean the rich say a lot of prayers than the poor. But our wallet reveals a lot about what we believe about God.

In other words, what we do with the things God gave us is important to Him. In short, our money matters to God.

Now, we will not go through all the 2,350 verses tonight! We will just sample a few from 1 Timothy 6. One portion of the chapter goes like this:

“But godliness with contentment is great gain.”

(1 Timothy 6:6, NIV)

Godliness with contentment is great gain. Great gain means great profit. Do you agree with me that a person with great profit is a rich person? The Bible says a truly rich person is a content person. How do I know if I am content? How’s your CQ or “contentment quotient”? Let’s read our passage in full.

“But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that.” (1 Timothy 6:6-8, NIV)

It’s translated this way in a Bible for kids: “It is true that serving God makes a person very rich, if he is satisfied with what he has.” (Int’l Children’s Bible) So we are truly rich if we are satisfied with what we have. So, let’s ask ourselves, “Am I satisfied with what I have?”

In another translation, it says, “But true faith, with peace of mind, is of great profit”. Let’s ask ourselves, “Do I have peace of mind?”

Now, how do we know if we are really satisfied with what we have? How do we know if we really have peace of mind?

WE KNOW WE ARE CONTENT WITH THE WAY WE REGARD MONEY.

The Bible says, “For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it.” (v. 7) Being content means I recognize the rightful place of wealth in my heart. My worth as a person does not depend on how much I have. My money serves me. I don’t serve money.

It also says, “But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that.” (v. 8)

Someone wrote, “We are not saying this is the limit that we should have. What we are saying is that we should be satisfied even if we only have food and clothing.”

The apostle Paul wrote in Philippians 4:12-13, “I am not complaining about having too little. I have learned to be satisfied with whatever I have. I know what it is to be poor or to have plenty, and I have lived under all kinds of conditions. I know what it means to be full or to be hungry, to have too much or too little. Christ gives me the strength to face anything.” (Contemporary English Version)

We should not grumble when we have too little and we should be humble when we have too much.

I believe you may have heard this: “Money is the root of all evil.” That’s one of the most misquoted verses in the Bible! It really goes like this: “People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.” (1 Timothy 6:9-10, NIV)