It is oh so tempting to play the lottery. I called my father-n-law and we joked about buying lottery tickets. We had a good laugh at trying to contrive a good reason that would be acceptable to our consciences in light of our relationship with the Lord. It is fun to think about what one can do with all that money; all the good things one could do! I would pay off all our mortgage and debt. I thought of the friends I have met on the mission field that I could remove their financial needs for ministry for years to come. I could help fund our missions budget for our church so that we can do so much more, and send more across the globe.
It is fun to dream…but as I ponder my dreams and desires AND read John Piper’s blog (see below) God convicted my heart. You see, God is not limited by what I can give or do. He owns it all anyway. His plans will not be achieved or thwarted by what I do or don’t do.
The truth of the matter is this: the Lord has provided all the resources we need to make His Name known. How? Through His people; His church! Yet, many believers give less than 2% of their income to the church and her mission. As noted in the blog below, people under the poverty level are spending 9% of their income on the lottery! A tithe is 10%. And we wonder why our missions budget is not sufficient. We wonder why missionaries and church planters throughout the world struggle to do so much with so little, and the vast majority of believers around the world struggle to simply sustain their families. We wonder why children starve in Africa, and in other third world countries.
Why doesn’t God do something about this? He has! He has chosen and appointed each believer to be salt and light; to give as God has given to us. 2 Cor. 8 states that Jesus “though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.” He left the glories of heaven as King to become a poor servant to us, so that we might be adopted and have the inheritance reserved in heaven for us. Have you ever thought that one reason that God has blessed us in America with so much is to give to meet the needs of others and not squander it on lottery tickets and ______________ you fill in the blank with whatever we spend our money on.
As I try to reason all the good I could do with the lottery, I am reminded that God ordains the means as well. Just because I may win the lottery and do so much good, how many poor people am I, by my participation, taking advantage of. You see, God ordains the means. The way He has chosen to fund ministry and missions is through our work and our sacrifice.
I am reminded how much we, as a family, waste on ourselves. I am reminded of how little I trust my Father to provide for me as He calls me to give sacrificially. Lord, help me!
The Mega Millions Lottery Is a Suicidal Craze
by John Piper | March 30, 2012
Tonight a ticket will be chosen worth over half a billion dollars. Lottery agents in New York were selling 1.3 million Mega Millions tickets per hour Thursday.
Officials were expecting to sell about 1.2 billion tickets total before the drawing.
“Americans spend about $60 billion on the lottery every year,” says Stephen Dubner, co-author of “Freakonomics.” “More than $500 per American household goes to playing the lottery.” (CBS This Morning)
There are at least seven reasons you should not gamble with your money in this way — and should tell your congressmen not to support it.
1. It is spiritually suicidal.
“Those who desire to get rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction. . . They have pierced themselves with many a pang” (1 Timothy 6:7–10).
2. It is a kind of embezzlement.
Manager’s don’t gamble with their Master’s money. All you have belongs to God. All of it. Faithful trustees may not gamble with a trust fund. They have no right. The parable of the talents says Jesus will take account of how we handled his money. “They went and worked” (Matthew 25:16). That is how we seek to provide for ourselves (1 Corinthians 4:12; 1 Thessalonians 4:11; Ephesians 4:28)
3. It’s a fool’s errand.
The odds of winning are nearly 176 million-to-one. You take real money and buy with it a chance. That chance is so infinitesimally small that the dollar is virtually lost. 175,999,999 times. The smaller amounts paid out more often are like a fog to keep you from seeing what is happening.
4. The system is built on the necessity of most people losing.
The Lottery is just another form of gambling (without any of the glamour and glitz of Las Vegas, of course). The “house:” controls the action, the players will all eventually lose. International Business Times
5. It preys on the poor.
It supports and encourages “yet another corrosive addiction that preys upon the greed and hopeless dreams of those trapped in poverty. . . The Consumerist suggested that poor people in the U.S. — those earning $13,000 or less — spend an astounding 9 percent of their income on lottery tickets. . . making this ‘harmless’ game a ‘deeply regressive tax.’”
6. There is a better alternative.
A survey by Opinion Research Corporation for the Consumer Federation of America and the Financial Planning Association, revealed that one-fifth (21 percent) of people surveyed thought the lottery was a practical way to accumulate wealth. We are teaching people to be fools.
If the $500 dollars a year that on average all American households throw away on the lottery (see above) were invested in an index fund each year for 20 years, each family would have $24,000. Not maybe. Really. And the taxes on these earnings would not only support government services, but would be built on sound and sustainable habits of economic life.
7. For the sake of quick money, government is undermining the virtue without which it cannot survive.
“A government that raises money by encouraging and exploiting the weaknesses of its citizens escapes that democratic mechanism of accountability. As important, state-sponsored gambling undercuts the civic virtue upon which democratic governance depends” (First Things, Sept., 1991, 12).
So, if you win, don’t tithe your lottery winnings to our church. Christ does not build his church on the backs of the poor. Pray that Christ’s people will be so satisfied in him that they will be freed from the greed that makes us crave to get rich.
Go Center @ Trinity Baptist 