Economy in the things of God

There must be a clearing up after every banquet. They went round and gathered up the fragments that remained, and found twelve baskets full. This, as has often been remarked, teaches us economy in everything that we do for God; not economy as to giving to him, but as to the use of the Lord’s money. Break your alabaster boxes, and pour out the sacred nard with blessed wastefulness, for that very wastefulness is the sweetness of the gift; but when God entrusts you with any means to use for him, use those means with discretion. When we have money given to us for use in God’s cause we should be more careful with it than if it were our own; and the same rule applies to other matters.

Ministers, when God gives them a good time in their studies, and they read the Word and it opens up before them, should keep notes of what comes to them. The wind does not always blow alike, and it is well to grind your wheat when the mill will work. You should put up your sails, and let your barque fly along when you have a good, favoring breeze, and this may make up for dead calms. Economically put by the fragments that remain after you have fed next Sunday’s congregation, that there may be something for hard times when your head aches, and you are dull and heavy in pulpit preparations.

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "The Miracle of the Loaves." Image by Renata Diem on Flickr under Creative Commons License.