by J. Randal Matheny

A few weeks ago, Daytimers, always attentive to saving time, sent out this not-so-hard-to-believe tax trivia:

MUNCH, MUNCH: Taxes gobble up 38.2% of the average family's income. That's more than the amount for food, clothing and shelter ... combined!

TIMBER! Nearly 300,000 trees are chopped down annually to produce the paper needed to print the IRS's mountains of forms and instructions.

ASTRONOMICAL! The IRS sends out 8 billion pages of forms and instructions every year. Lay them end-to-end and they'd encircle the earth 28 times. That's a 672,000-mile highway of confusion!

THE ART OF, UH, SIMPLIFICATION? The Gettysburg address has 269 words; the Declaration of Independence, 1,337 words; the Bible, 773,000. However, U.S. tax law has ballooned from a relatively "slender" 11,400 words in 1913, to a seam-busting 7 million words today!

DRIVEN TO COMPLY: American taxpayers spend over $200 billion and over 5.3 billion hours to comply with federal taxes each year. That's more than it takes to produce every car, truck, and van in the United States. SURPRISED? 60% of taxpayers must hire a professional to complete their return.

PERCENTAGES. If taxes take 38.2% of the average income, the Lord requires all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength (Matthew 22:37). Though you MIGHT get a refund from the IRS, God brings you a return equal to and beyond the measure you use (Luke 6:38).

TIMBER. If 300,000 trees are converted every year to IRS forms and instructions, God did his work with only one, hewn in the form of a cross, good for all time.

SIMPLICITY. The seven million words of today's tax law will increase next year. And the next. And the next. The gospel of God has stayed the same for 2000 years and won't change until the end of time. Anybody can read and understand it.

COMPLIANCE. You make all that effort and hire a tax-preparer, and the IRS can still get you on a technicality, if they want. For the soul, all diligence is required (2 Peter 1:10; 3:14), but we can be assured of pleasing the Lord in all things (Colossians 1:10; 1 Thessalonians 4:1; 1 John 3.22).

DOUBLE-SPEAK. IRS talks about our "contributions," when, in reality, we pay taxes. God calls each thing as it is. Sin is transgression of his law (1 John 3:4). Salvation is pulling man out of his self-made condemnation (Romans 3:23; 6.23).

ENRICHMENT. Our hard-earned monies go into government coffers. God's treasures descend from heaven to enrich our spirits (2 Corinthians 9:8-11) and enable us to make free, generous, and voluntary contributions to help our neighbor and further the progress of the gospel.

We pay taxes because the Lord commands us to submit ourselves to the government, which serves as his agent in this world to preserve peace (Romans 13:1ff).

We save our souls because God gave the greatest gift of his Son to die in our stead.

So do your taxes. And save your soul.

For Mark Twain was wrong. Death and taxes will one day cease.

So the eternal soul deserves our full atention.

by Roy Davison

It is spring. Hedges are budding, and yellow blossoms decorate the trees.

Yet, as I walked home from town, I saw something that made me sad. A dead sparrow lay beside the road, evidently killed by a passing car.

And still clamped in her motionless beak was a twig.

"Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father's will" (Matthew 10:29).

God feeds the birds and cares for us (Luke 12:24), yet there is a day of death. Like the rich man, we pass away in the midst of our pursuits (James 1:11).

"Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit'; whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. Instead you ought to say, 'If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that' " (James 4:13-15).

"Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming" (Matthew 25:13).

Roy is a long-term missionary in Belgium and webmaster for the Old Paths sites. www.oldpaths.com

By Michael E. Brooks

"But God said to him, 'Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?' So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God" (Luke 12:20,21).

A friend and I were discussing the economic classification of countries in the world. What determines whether a given nation is "First World", or "Third World"? We realized that it is tied to issues of technological development and economic health, but where precisely is the line drawn? When does a country truly qualify as "poor"? Who exactly are the "have nots"?

Having traveled in several parts of the world considered poor by virtually everyone, I offer one observation. Generally speaking the poor people I have seen have no closets. Think about that. Their homes contain no storage capacity of any kind. No basements, no attics, no stuffed garages, no closets. If you have no possessions besides what you wear or carry on your person, you need nowhere to put them. That is getting very close to a definition of poor. The poor are those who have only the bare minimum of the direst necessities for life, OR LESS!

Consider this statement from the Law of Moses:

"If you ever take your neighbor's garment as a pledge, you shall return it to him before the sun goes down. For that is his only covering, it is his garment for his skin. What will he sleep in?" (Exodus 22:26,27a).

It is his only garment! He has nothing else even in which to sleep. Note that it was the presumption of the Law that many (most?) people in Israel would fit in that category. This is the Scriptural background of the teaching of Jesus in the instructions for the limited commission:

"He commanded them to take nothing for the journey except a staff – no bag, no bread, no copper in their money belts – but to wear sandals, and not to put on two tunics" (Mark 6:8,9).

The disciples would be preaching among people who had nothing extra and they were not to flaunt wealth among them. Whether they had it to flaunt is another question, but Matthew (Levi) had been a tax collector; Peter and the sons of Zebedee were fishermen who at least seem to have owned boats and nets. Perhaps others of the disciples had means of their own. If so, they were commanded to identify with those they were attempting to reach, who certainly included the poor. That meant not to take so much as a change of clothing on their journey.

When we get to the parable in Luke 12 of the man whom we so superciliously call "the rich fool", the application becomes quite personal. What precisely was his sin? He had extra possessions, given by the graciousness of God. What did he do with them? He put them in barns (i.e., storage rooms, attics, closets?) for future use, rather than to use them for the benefit of others. He "la[id] up treasure for himself, and [was] not rich towards God."

When we in America build or buy a house, one of the most desired features is usually abundant storage space. We want lots of closets. Should that become a guideline for us in answering the question, "who are the poor?" And conversely, "who are the rich?" Biblical evidence points strongly in that direction. It is long past time for us to listen to the judgment pronounced by our overfilled closets and to be rich towards God, through being generous to the poor who are his people. Listen to his warning as given by Moses:

"And it will be that when he cries to me, I will hear, for I am gracious" (Exodus 22:27b).

by Tim Hall

When it comes to rose-gardening, I'm obviously a novice. It's usually the bush and the blossoms that get my attention, for I know how much my wife and I love freshly cut roses. On this occasion, though, my focus was on their roots. These plants needed a new location, and my job was to carefully dig them up and move them. The bush I had planted a year ago was no problem; it was the older bushes that challenged me. Their roots were deep into the ground.

The Bible uses the image of roots. As I occasionally work with plants, both vegetable and ornamental, my appreciation for roots deepens. The benefits of well-developed roots to a plant are significant. The same is true for spiritual lives.

Properly-developed roots are the plant's assurance of water, even in times of drought. Jeremiah used this image in Jeremiah 17:7,8: "Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and whose hope is the Lord. For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, which spreads out its roots by the river, and will not fear when heat comes; but its leaf will be green, and will not be anxious in the year of drought, nor will cease from yielding fruit" (NKJV). "The year of drought" inevitably comes into every life. Our task is to be prepared for such times. Those who take the time to nourish their roots will find the water that is scarce to others. Shallow-rooted plants wither and die (see also Matthew 13:20,21).

A second reason for developing our roots is found in Colossians 2:6,7: "As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving." Paul's thought is not about drought or moisture; he spoke of the need to be established. That fact was impressed on me as I transplanted the rose bushes. The year-old bush was easily removed from its spot; the older bushes clung more tenaciously to their positions. Christians who have dedicated themselves to maturing in the faith will not easily be moved from where the Lord plants them.

Roots are therefore vital to a plant. But how does one develop spiritual roots?

The first psalm holds the key to growing more stable in our faith. After warning against evil pursuits, the writer pronounced this blessing: "But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night. He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither; and whatever he does shall prosper" (Psalm 1:2,3). Here is a tree that is fruitful because it found the moisture it needed and because it was not moved by the storm. Here is a picture of what God expects of His people.

Reading and studying our Bibles – it's not a novel or exotic idea. But David identified it as the key to proper development of spiritual roots. In those quiet moments of reading God's word, development is taking place. It can't be seen, and it's not as exciting as cutting and displaying prize-winning roses. But without those roots, there will be no blooms.

by Mike Benson

I have a close friend who loves his children very much. It's obvious by his words and actions that he cares deeply for his girls. He's especially good at encouraging and rewarding them when they do well.

Some time ago, his daughters brought home their report cards. Both had excelled in their school work; one had also received an outstanding citizenship award. Daddy was understandably proud of their scholastic achievements and so he gave them both a "reward".

Want to guess what it was?

Guess again.

Guess again.

He took them to the local bank and opened a couple of mutual funds on their behalf! They were thrilled. Really!

When I first thought about it, the idea of signing the kids up for mutual funds sounded sort of...well...dare I say it...odd, maybe even silly. (If you're like me, you take your progeny out to Dairy Queen or Krispy Kreme for their good grades).

But the more I pondered this father's gifts, the more I began to see his wisdom and true devotion. You see, instead of teaching them the need for immediate gratification, he instilled within them the importance of waiting and patience. Instead of teaching them to buy and spend, he showed them how to save and invest. Most of all, this Christian Dad rewarded his daughters by bestowing something that all of our children need - the value and importance of stewardship.

Just a thought. Are we teaching our children how to use the money that God has loaned to them?

"Train up a child..." (Prov. 22:6).