I think it is well that I keep with Herb Miller's words so will include for today the next from lesson 2. It is not that the text relates directly to the listed questions, it may reach back to the last set or forward into the next. As this goes on it seems I find stuff I am doing is way far out and needs changed so hopefully we are getting better all the time. Again I will accept any ideas or suggestions.

Security Systems Are Not Created Equal
The need to feel secure is basic to every personality. All of us ask. Am I safe'; If our emotional system does not hear a positive answer to this question, we experience fear and anxiety, hi trying to block that painful fear and anxiety, we often reach for a feeling of security by using methods that do not work—while overlooking altogether the one method that Jesus says does work
Whether we feel secure or insecure is greatly influenced by the feelings of hopefulness or lack of hope in our personality. Without hope, fear takes charge of our psyche. Jesus says that prayer, not money, is the secret to feeling hopeful. Much contemporary cv idcnce indicates that Jesus was right. Newspapers print numerous stories about people who had great wealth but lived and died in abject poverty. They had enough money, but it did not sufficiently protect them from the demons of fear. Feelings of optimism and hopefulness about our future do not come from having sufficient money. These feelings can. however, come from having the sufficiency of God. which comes primarily through prayer.
When Jesus drove the money changers out of the temple, his major concern \vas not religious rules or financial ethics. He was demonstrating that the top religious leaders had lost their spiritual focus. God had been marginalized. We are all exposed to the same danger the temple administrators experienced. When we focus on money—getting it and keeping it—we tend to unfocus our spiritual connection with God. This is like trying to photograph in two directions at once. You cannot shoot north and south simultaneously. Jesus never said money was unnecessary. He said it was trivial, when compared to the central need of even- human personality, a relationship with God.
Jesus said that the answer to financial security and to the recurring fear of not having enough is not money but prayer: "Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart" (Luke 18:1). That is one of the many reasons John Henry Jewett. the great pulpit personage of another century, said that he would rather teach one person to pray than ten people to preach. Every person has faith in something. Same place their faith in persons, things, institutions, themselves, or money. That is misplaced faith. We are saved through faith but not just any kind of faith—through faith in God. Faith is empowered by prayer or it is not empowered at all.

4. If prayer is more important than money in providing security for individual persons, are there ways in which that principle applies to entire congregations?
5. Have you had any personal experiences that seem to validate the teaching of Jesus that the bottom line comes from above?
6. What are your personal convictions about the giving of money for God's work'? What life experiences were especially influential in helping you arrive at these opinions?