This 5-day devotional draws directly from the sermon “Showcase - Sunday Morning Worship Service 10:45am” so you can keep engaging with the message all week. Read, reflect, and share it with your small group or friends.
No Fool: Spending What You Can't Keep on What Will Last
You Can't Take It With You — But You Can Send It Ahead
Monday — Understanding the Truth
What would you do differently today if you knew exactly how much time you had left?
Today's Scripture "And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails, they may receive you into eternal dwellings." — Luke 16:9
Reflection In one of his more puzzling stories, Jesus tells about a manager who's about to lose his job. He's been wasteful with his boss's resources, the jig is up, and he knows it. So what does he do? He gets busy. He uses what little time and authority he has left to secure his future — and his master actually commends him for it. Not for being dishonest. For being shrewd.
Jesus then turns to his followers and says something striking: worldly people often work harder to secure their earthly future than God's people do to secure their eternal one. And he invites us to flip the script. Use the temporary things — your money, your time, your energy — to invest in what lasts forever.
Jim Elliott, a missionary who gave his life in the jungles of Ecuador, once wrote in his journal: "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose." He even wrote Luke 16:9 right beneath it.
That's the heart of this week's theme. Everything you hold in your hands right now is temporary. But how you use it can echo into eternity.
Today's Step Sit with this question today: Am I living like this world is all there is, or like something far greater is coming?
A Closing Thought You don't have to have it all figured out. Just begin by seeing your life — your time, your money, your relationships — as something entrusted to you, not owned by you.
You're Managing Someone Else's Stuff
Tuesday — When It's Hard
Be honest: does it feel a little uncomfortable to think of everything you own as not really yours?
Today's Scripture "Behold, to the Lord your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it." — Deuteronomy 10:14
"You are not your own, for you were bought with a price." — 1 Corinthians 6:19b–20a
Reflection There's something in us that resists the idea of stewardship. We worked for this. We earned it. We built it. The idea that it all belongs to God can feel abstract at best, and threatening at worst.
And honestly? The responsibility that comes with stewardship can feel heavy. If everything belongs to God and I'm accountable for how I use it, that's a lot of pressure. What if I'm already getting it wrong? What if I've already wasted too much?
Here's the grace in this: the manager in Jesus's parable had already wasted his master's resources. He'd already blown it. And yet he still had a window of time — a chance to act differently before the end came. The story doesn't begin with a perfect steward. It begins with a failing one who gets a second chance to choose wisely.
That's where most of us live. We haven't always been faithful with what we've been given. We've chased comfort, scrolled away hours, spent energy on things that don't last. But if you woke up this morning, you still have a window. The account hasn't been closed yet.
God isn't waiting for you to be perfect before he can use what you have. He's inviting you to start now, with what's in your hands today.
Today's Step Instead of guilt, try honesty: Lord, I haven't always handled what you've given me wisely. Show me what faithful stewardship looks like starting today.
A Closing Thought Grace doesn't erase the past — it opens a door into a better future. Walk through it.
Small Moves With Eternal Weight
Wednesday — Putting It Into Practice
What if the most significant thing you do today doesn't look significant at all?
Today's Scripture "One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much." — Luke 16:10a
Reflection It's easy to think that living for eternity requires some dramatic, sweeping gesture — selling everything, moving overseas, making a grand sacrifice. But Jesus says faithfulness starts small. The person who handles little things well is the same person who can be trusted with great things.
So what does this look like on a Tuesday afternoon or a Thursday morning?
It might look like putting your phone down at dinner and actually being present with the people in front of you — because those relationships matter more than your feed. It might look like lingering after a gathering to check in on someone who seemed tired or quiet. It might look like giving generously when you'd rather hold on, trusting that God's economy works differently than the world's.
It might look like introducing yourself to someone new, or sending a text to a friend you've been meaning to reach out to. Small, ordinary, unheroic — and yet Jesus says these are exactly the kinds of moves that build something that lasts.
The shrewd manager didn't wait for a grand opportunity. He worked with what he had, in the time he had, for the people in front of him. That's the invitation for you today.
Today's Step Choose one concrete thing: reach out to someone who could use encouragement, give something you've been holding onto, or simply slow down long enough to be fully present with the people around you.
A Closing Thought Eternity is built in ordinary moments. Don't underestimate the ones you have today.
The River That Changed Everything
Thursday — What This Looks Like in Real Life
Sometimes the most powerful thing you can witness is someone living like they actually believe what they say they believe.
Today's Scripture "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal." — Matthew 6:19–20
Reflection Imagine a man who loses his father violently when he is just a boy. As he grows up, he carries that loss — but he also carries the faith that shaped his father's life. Years later, as a young man, he stands in a jungle river and is baptized. The men performing the baptism are the same men who killed his father in that very same river a decade before.
This is the true story of Steve Saint, son of missionary pilot Nate Saint, who was killed in Ecuador in 1956. His father had given what he could not keep. And years later, Steve witnessed the fruit of that sacrifice — men transformed, a community reached, a river that once held death now holding new life.
This is what it looks like to spend the temporary on the eternal. It doesn't always make sense to the watching world. It often looks like loss. But the returns are the kind that last — changed lives, restored relationships, people welcomed into something that never ends.
You may never stand in that river. But every time you invest in a person rather than a possession, every time you choose presence over convenience, you are making the same kind of bet — that people matter more than things, and that eternity is more real than today.
Today's Step Ask yourself: Is there someone in my life I've been meaning to invest in — a conversation I've been putting off, a relationship I've let drift? What's one step I can take toward them this week?
A Closing Thought The things you pour into people don't disappear. They travel further than you'll ever see.
Living Like You Know What's Coming
Friday — Carrying It Forward
You've been thinking about eternity all week. Now take it with you into the weekend.
Today's Scripture "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose." — Jim Elliott's journal, written above Luke 16:9
"For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." — Matthew 6:21
Reflection Here's a simple, honest question to carry into your weekend: Where is my treasure right now?
Not where you wish it were. Not where you think it should be. Where is it actually? What do you spend the most energy protecting, building, worrying about, chasing?
Jesus says your heart follows your treasure. Which means the way to reorient your heart isn't to try harder to feel differently — it's to start putting your resources somewhere different. Your time, your attention, your money, your generosity. Move the treasure, and the heart follows.
This week we've seen that everything we have belongs to God and is temporary. We've been honest about how hard it is to live that way. We've taken small steps toward faithfulness. We've seen what it looks like when someone really lives it.
Now the weekend opens up — with its rhythms of rest, family, maybe church, maybe a quiet morning with coffee. Bring this with you. Be a little more present. Be a little more generous. Look for one person you can encourage, serve, or simply see.
You don't have to be extraordinary. You just have to be faithful with what's in your hands today.
Today's Step Before the weekend gets busy, write down one name — someone you want to invest in this week. Then do one thing, however small, to make that real.
A Closing Thought You cannot keep what you have. But you can use it for something that lasts forever — and that changes everything about how you live today.