What Actually Matters | Crossroads Daily

Hey, welcome. We're discussing Luke 21 today. My name's Josh. My name's Mish. I'm Kirsten. And I'm Deepa. I looked to you when you were supposed to say your name. Awkward. That's weird. Okay. Luke 21. Does anything stick out to anybody? I don't know what a mite is. I think we're going to get to that. A mite. A mite. The widow's mite? Yeah. Well, you know what a mite is? A bug. Bug. You know what a mite is? A bug? Bug. Did you know that? No. You didn't know that a mite is? What's a mite? I thought it was like a dust bunny, like a fake thing. A mite.

I thought a mite was like a ball of dirt. Oh my gosh. It's a bug. I don't know either. It's a tiny bug. It's a tiny bug. Okay. A mite just means a small offering, a small something. Mite. Cute. That's all it means. I can't believe you don't know what a mite is. I mean. You might have mites crawling on you right now. It is possible. Oh. All right. And you know what? I don't care. Okay. All right. I'll share what came to mind. Please. Please. Please. First thing that came to mind is I shared the story with some of our staff team before, but we get to do prison ministry around here, and there's a couple people in prison, but one particular who's very faithful in her offering to our church, her tithe to our church. She writes a letter every single time she sends it in. She sends it directly to our finance team.

And what's so beautiful about it is I happen to know a little bit more about around how much they make in their jobs when they're in prison, and it's not a lot. I mean, it's sometimes max like five bucks a week, right? It varies, but point being is she faithfully sends that in, and this story reminds me a lot of that. It's like, I don't have much, but I will give it to the kingdom of God. Yeah. Gosh. That's good. Yeah. It says she gave out of her poverty. Right. The wealthy gave out of their abundance. She gave out of her poverty, which is amazing and incredible. And that is easy for me to root for. It's so easy for me to root for and for me to go, oh gosh, I'll give, yes, I'll give what I got. You're right. The thing that I get hung up on is the wealthy. Like I just assume anyone with, I have, I don't so much anymore, but I've always assumed that anyone that has much must be cheating the system. And so it's easy for me to look at the widow and go, yeah, you're amazing. Let me celebrate you. And so the way that Jesus has sort of been turning around on me has been like, you are incredibly, if I look at my life, I'm incredibly wealthy just compared to the rest of the world. And so the way Jesus has been turning this around is like, what are you holding back from me? Yeah. You are wealthy and you're so quick to judge people that have money, that have what you perceive as wealth.

What are you holding back? And that like, that changes this whole story for me because it's no longer about this obvious person in poverty. It's about me. Yeah. My poverty. Yeah. He's not pointing them out to be like, look at them. He's talking for them to reflect back on themselves and that's a really good perspective shift of the scripture. So often, like, see, look at this scripture, see how you're doing it wrong. And it's like, if only you knew Jesus was only talking to you. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I think I'm someone, I value stability and I value, yeah, feeling secure, specifically even in finances. And I think of this widow and the mindset that she had and how it left her in a place of dependence, like, and how, when we operate in that, when I operate in that way, when I don't focus on maybe stability as my God or security as my God, like it leaves me in this place of dependence on the Lord. And I think that when we don't operate in that way, we miss, we miss out on that. I've missed out on that and I focus so much on my abundance rather than giving out of a place of, of everything that I want to give to the Lord. So I'm not only to put you on the spot, but I'm going to, and if you need time to think about this, you can think about it. What does that practically mean for you? Like, what is a, what is like practically me, Debo? This is what I have to do. Yeah.

If you need time to think about it, you can think about it. Yeah. Let me think. Okay. Yeah. What feels easy, like going to a church, is tithing. I feel that that doesn't, at this point, me and my husband, we tithe, and so that doesn't necessarily feel like a sacrifice, but the times that has felt really practical for me is in moments where something doesn't go the way that I would've seen coming. I talked about this story not too long ago where we, yeah, my, my husband and I, we mentor some high schoolers, and he mentors a high school boy, and he felt this desire for us to give to this high school boy financially, and in my heart, I didn't want to, because when you look at all of the things that are going on in our life, I'm like, we could do this, we could do this, we have issues with our car and all this stuff, and what feels good for me is just to focus on the security of financially, just keeping that for ourselves, and in that moment, I'm so glad that the Lord really challenged him, which challenged me, to say, okay, God, I'm gonna choose to depend on you,

and even if this feels kind of dumb to give this away, practically, this money away, even though we need it, I'm gonna trust in you, so I think more than just the tithe that we give, we, both of us, have looked for opportunities, even if it feels a little hard, to give to people around us that are in need, and practice that generosity in that way, and allows us to kind of become more dependent on the Lord when it comes to our finances, which is hard for me, so. That reminded me of micro decisions that I could do better at this. I have a friend who has been coming around our lives a lot, he is 19, he was in a homeless shelter for the past year, and just got an apartment down the road from our house, so he goes everywhere with me, but he's 19, and he's by himself, and has no support. He literally is just hanging out, and he'll text me and be like, Kirsten, I'm hungry, I don't have any food, because he's bad at managing his money, and it's been hard to get a job. He's been working on his GED. And I look in my, and I'm like, okay, I'm a Christian, I'll put some food out for him on the porch to come pick up, and I look at my fridge, and I'm like, okay, here's some leftovers from a week ago

that we're not gonna eat, here's some vegetables, I know my toddlers for sure are not gonna touch, and he probably needs vegetables anyways, like, oh, how holy am I to give this kid some vegetables and some chicken? And I put it on the porch, and he picks it up, and it has always sat heavy in my gut of like, why didn't it, I'm not gonna cry, but I'm like, why didn't I give him the good food in my fridge, or the stuff we just got? And I've been thinking about that a lot, because it's happened twice now, and both times I had that thought come to mind, and I both times was like, well, I have two kids, why would I sacrifice my good food for him, even though I could go to the store literally at any time, and buy the whole damn store, you know, hypothetically. So anyways, that's like super convicting, because I'm like, okay, well, now I'm gonna go to Jeffree B's, actually, I probably won't go to Jeffree B's and get him a steak, but some version of that, like, I would love to bless him like that, so, yeah. But that's amazing, you felt conviction you were gonna do something about it. Well, now, like a month later, but yeah, like it's work, it's a work in progress, but I'm glad that I was able to process that. Well, the thing I wanna affirm you in that is like Jesus says, did you feed the hungry?

Well, then you fed me, you cared for me, you loved me, and you are in, by nature, do that often, I feel like, but also you're doing that with your friend. And second of all, even just the conviction, that also reminds me of like the pouring of the nice oil on Jesus, like to a lot of others, it seemed like a waste, you could easily say like, yeah, but I mean, he just needs some food, like it's not that big of a deal. No, you're like providing a dignity, that's amazing. Yeah, thanks, Mish, thanks, guys. I think like for me in this, again, I will always identify with like the underdog, with the downtrodden person, like that is just easy for me to celebrate. And in so doing, it allows me to ignore my own. poverty, not my monetary poverty, but my spiritual poverty. But I think in this, for us, for me, it's like, if I were rich and I gave out of abundance and love, Jesus is pleased. If I'm poor and I give out of my poverty and love, Jesus is pleased. It is just about my heart condition. And I think that is the thing for me, like, that's the thing that makes me not a functional atheist, is my heart. Like, otherwise, yeah, I can go to church all I want. I can say nice, kind words all I want. I can tithe all I want. But if my heart has not changed, like, yeah, Jesus will just as easily go, I didn't know you. Yeah. Give all you want, I don't care.

I always have to remind people, just because you go to church, just because someone goes to church doesn't mean that they're a good person. Like, we would hope so, but I don't know, that's a little off topic, but I think a lot of people that get church hurt because of people, I'm like, we have to remember, like, Jesus is the church, not exactly what you're saying, like the people that enter into the building. I don't know. I don't understand what Jesus is saying to these people of, like, yeah, your heart is what makes you the church, not what you're doing in the church, necessarily. That's not what I meant to say, but you get it. Yeah. I think in this, the idea of being a good person, Jesus sort of goes, it's not about whether you're a good person. Do you love me? Am I the Lord of your life? That's it. These are just examples of Jesus going, this is how I know you love me, is your heart. That's good. All right. See you next time. Don't you love how he answered? See ya. He's like, bye!