Thoughts From Luke - Day 72

                                            Luke 16:10-15

“Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. ¹¹ So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? ¹² And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else’s property, who will give you property of your own?
¹³ “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”
¹⁴ The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all this and were sneering at Jesus. ¹⁵ He said to them, “You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of others, but God knows your hearts. What people value highly is detestable in God’s sight.


          I've blogged about my pharmaceutical sample closet before, but this is such a perfect example of the Kingdom of God's view of money, that I have to do it again. The drug reps come and bring you samples of their product and educate you on dosing, efficacy, and side effects.(they never tell you the cost). They return 2-4 weeks later to see if you have had a chance to use it and restock your shelf. (until it becomes generic and then you never see them again) So when patients come in that need the medicine I am extremely generous with the samples. We have bags that we put samples in so you can often see patients leaving the office with a bag of free medicine. Lets say the medicine in that bag would have cost them $250 and the office visit cost $50. They made $200 by coming to the doctor! They leave thinking, "I love Dr. Koerten" so it's a win win situation; they are happy and I'm happy. But there is more. When the drug rep comes in, (s)he is happy because the product is being used. They restock the shelf, don't feel the need to give me another sales pitch (another win for me) and report to their boss who is pleased with them.

          Now where can this whole cycle of happiness break down? What if I am so proud of the closet and hundreds of thousands of dollars of medicine I have that I want to keep it as full as possible. Maybe I want to save the medicines just in case my friends and relatives need them. Or maybe, for fear I will run out, I just give a limited number of samples. Maybe I get greedy and try to sell them. What happens then? Well, probably jail for the last one but for the others, the patients leave without medicine and when they arrive at the pharmacy and see the cost they either don't get the medicine or curse you for writing for such an expensive one. Meanwhile the medicines are going out of date so eventually you have to throw them out or receive a huge fine if you are inspected. They are wasted. Lastly, when the drug rep comes, (s)he will only replace the ones given out, will be disappointed, get a negative review from their boss, take up more of your time, and eventually quit coming and give their samples to some other doctor who will use them.

          Do you see the analogy? Jesus says if you hoard money rather than give it away, you may have a nice nest egg but the cycle of blessing that makes others happy, you happy, and God happy has been broken. God will see that and say, "Well I was going to give them so much more to give out but they have proven to be untrustworthy in their use of it. They consider the money I gave for them to use for my kingdom, as their own personal money. I guess I will go give my money to someone else who loves me more than money." And zoom, God is gone. You missed out because you grabbed the money with clenched fists rather than holding it in open hands. It is like the Dead Sea which is dead because water comes in but there is no exit. It's good for nothing but floating in it.

        Do you notice how much Jesus talks about money? That's because He knows how important it is to everyone. We can't deny that - it's important to us, too. But let's have the proper view of it. Let's have a kingdom mindset.

        Father, help me to be a faithful steward of all you have entrusted me to manage. Keep filling my cabinet and when you come to inspect, may You find it well used. Amen