“Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers” Romans 12:13.
This passage may remind us of a grandmother handing out food to men and women traveling along old railroad tracks behind farm fields. Or we may remember being taught to carry coins for the Sunday school offering or gathering donations for the church pantry.
The stewardship and hospitality shown by our family and friends were extensions of their faith and ultimately of our own. Our feelings about the role of money and other valuable resources in our lives are intimately connected to what we were taught or shown in the past by our parents, families, partners and friends.
Think about your early experiences with money. Did it involve the church? Did your family discuss issues of family finances? Do you currently? What about society’s relationship with money? Do you talk about that with your spouse, children, or friends?
This message is excerpted from “Grace-full living,” by Emily Hansen in the July/August 2015 Gather magazine.
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