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Sep 06, 2006 Should a Christian gamble or play the lotteries? Posted on by Mike Scott audio:q299a.mp3 titles=WDSS Episode 299 First, we should differentiate gambling from other risks and ventures. Legally, gambling is the taking of unnecessary and unproductive risk in which one agrees that on the outcome of an uncertain event he may gain.

Gambling usually indicates a love for money, and the Bible says that it’s impossible for us to love both money and God. Matthew 6:20 tells us to store up treasures in Heaven, and not on Earth. Everything here will pass away, including money. Gambling isn’t a sin, but it’s near impossible to separate gambling from the love of money.
My encouragement for you today is not to give up Speaking Life. So I’ve got a song ‘Speak Life – by Toby Mac’ and a few Bible verses to help us make the pronouncements that will change our lives and turn our circumstances around for good. Watch the Video.
100 Bible Verses about Gambling Proverbs 13:11 ESV / 586 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful Wealth gained hastily will dwindle, but whoever gathers little by little will increase it.

Part 7 – Biblical Financial Stewardship

If I were a Rich Man

Our daughter Charlotte was involved in the local middle school production of Fiddler on the Roof. The musical has that familiar song sung by Tevya. If I were a rich man, Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum. All day long I'd biddy biddy bum. If I were a wealthy man. I wouldn't have to work hard…

Tevya dreams about not having to work hard. We’ve all been there. What might it be like to be independently wealthy and just do what we wanted? If we feel overworked we dream of having truly free time to pursue hobbies or vacationing. So Is Tevya right that we would be happier if we didn’t have to work hard? Is work the villain who steals our time?

Then there’s the bumper sticker that parodies the eager seven dwarfs heading off to work in the diamond mines. I owe, I owe, So off to work I go. Is that all there is to work – paying off principle and interest? Is work just a necessary evil to pay off our loans?

What is the purpose of work in the mind of God? Is it just money production? Many Christians have perhaps never considered whether their work had value beyond the money they earn – or maybe witnessing to someone at work. Obviously God does want to provide for us through our jobs and He wants to use us spiritually where we work, but what about the work itself? Doe it have value intrinsically? It would seem a terrible waste of 40 – 60 hours a week if there was no real value to our work itself.

Employed by God

The first step toward meaningful work is to realize that God was the first worker. He “worked” for six days creating the world until He chose to cease – thus establishing the Sabbath in which He appreciated what He had accomplished. If work is something God does, it must have some intrinsic value. He wouldn’t model a mundane drudgery and certainly not a necessary evil. God example honors work.

Adam was the next worker. God finished His work and assigned the upkeep of his handiwork to Adam. Genesis 2:15 states, 'The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.' So work itself is actually a “spiritual” stewardship, not a “secular” necessity.

So there was human work to do even before there was sin. God put Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and told them to work it and care for it. We might wonder what there was to do in a garden that had no weeds or thorns, but there was evidently some kind of picking and preparing food. Maybe there was some creating rearranging of plants like my wife Priscilla does in her flower bed all summer. The curse of thorns and thistles came later with sin, but work really came before that.

The term “work” (or keep or cultivate) is actually the Hebrew word for serving. In fact the priest’s service in the tabernacle and temple was called “work” with the same term as used of Adam’s work. The worship-work of priests and the garden-work of Adam are not distinguished in the Bible the way we tend to distinguish between secular and spiritual work in our modern Christian mindset.

Whom did Adam and Eve serve by work and tending the garden? Was their work just a matter of meeting their own needs? No, they were serving God. After all, it was God’s garden. And since we have learned that God owns everything, Adam’s work in the garden and our work today all takes place in God’s world. God owns the trees, the land, and the buildings we work in that are place on God’s land and constructed out of His trees. He owns and provided the copper wires carrying electricity through our walls and machine where we work. He created the materials forming the cement parking lot outside our office building or plant. It’s all God’s stuff.

Partners with God

Work we do serves His purposes and fits into His plans for the universe. If all forms of work in Bible times shared in common that they were really designed to serve God, there is no reason to view work differently today. Work is the process of us partnering with God to do what God wants done.

God wants to put food on the tables of the world, so if you are in the food industry, you are God’s partner. God wants to supply all the stuff at Walmart that you need to live, so if you manufacture or pack or truck or ship or repair or stock or sell or manage money or whatever you do, it’s serving God. God wants to clean people’s teeth and have kids learn math. He even wants us to have computers to create and communicate information. So God equipped you to help Him. Work is a divine assignment – regardless of the often selfish and sometimes evil intentions of those who perform work on earth.

The point is that work is not only valuable as a way to earn money. Our work is partnering with God – unless we work intentionally at something designed to hurt mankind. The “sin industries” such as the production of pornography or other vices come to mind. It is legitimate to consider if what we do for work is primarily devoted to sin or goodness, but we can’t control the effect or perversions of what sinful people do with what we create. For example, if we build computers, it is well known that computers have both harmful as well as helpful effects. A recent study of internet websites ironically revealed that pornography claims the top number of websites, while religious websites numbered the second most. (James Twitchell, Shopping for God, Simon & Schuster, 2007, p. 13).

The bottom line is that although the company for which we work might not realize it, they are just stewards too. They may be ungodly or selfish or even dishonest, but nonetheless they are being used by God to take care of His world. So what we call “secular” work is really a sacred responsibility.

As followers of Christ, it is our job to fulfill God’s intention for work so that He is glorified. We are the chosen few who really can do our work with inner motivation because we know that we are really serving Him (Colossians 3:23-24). To please God at our job means that first we must realize it’s a stewardship – whether we are stocking shelves, designing building, making widgets, volunteering to help someone in need, caring for babies at home or working as a full-time pastor or missionary.

Paul urged the Corinthians that 'Whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.' (1 Corinthians 10:31). If we thought that glorifying God was something that happened only within the walls of a church or in the confines of a ministry job, that idea is dispelled. God is just as interested in being glorified on a weekday afternoon as we try to be productive in the sleepy slump after lunch as He is during the crescendo of a worship anthem on Sunday morning. Everything task we “work” at is a stewardship from God whether we are paid for it or not. As we consciously and deliberately serve God in our regular responsibilities, we glorify Him.

As we work we are maintaining God’s world. What a wasted opportunity if we write off all those hours a week to just pay bills or debts. We dare not degrade our work when God commands and honors it. In fact we are responsible to thank Him for our work.

Thank God it’s Monday

You probably sit at an abundantly full table at Thanksgiving Dinner. Did you only thank God for the food you ate and the people around you or did you thank God for the work that He gave you to do before you

Scriptures That Speak About Gambling