He was rich toward God
“And he told them this parable: ‘The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. He thought to himself, “What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.” ‘Then he said, “This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I’ll say to myself, ‘You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.’” ‘But God said to him, “You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?”’ ‘This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God’” (New International Version, 1984, Luke 12:16–21).
As I enter the later stages of ministry, God has spoken to me in two passages about how He will provide for my family’s financial needs. The first passage is from Genesis 41where Joseph interprets Pharaoh’s dream of seven fat cows and seven scrawny cows.
God reminds me here that even though we are to trust in His provision, He still teaches us to save and invest. There are cycles to God’s design (six days of creation and then a Sabbath, seasons of the year) and sometimes you save and store and sometimes you spend and deplete. This is also true with any ministry.
The second passage is seen above from Luke 12:16-21. I hope at the end of my life there will be many people that can give testimony that, “he was rich toward God.” God has challenged me with these verses personally and also for our OJPM ministry.
Our vision statement mentioned in last month’s newsletter describes expanding OJPM ministry to “every county jail in Oklahoma.” For this vision to become a reality we are going to have to save and store and we are also going to have to be rich toward God.
To take a giant step forward in realizing our vision, we will be introducing the Joe Williams’ Endowment Fund at our spring luncheon on Tuesday, May 14th at The Petroleum Club, 100 N. Broadway, Oklahoma City (see box for details). This fund will be used to open new work in counties across Oklahoma. It is fitting that the fund is named after Joe because of his many years of leadership with OJPM and because he too was rich toward God.
The average expense for OJPM ministry in most of our counties is $6,000. Endowments use a rule of thumb of five percent of the principle to produce income that can be available for use each year. Each county endowment will need to be funded at $120,000 to produce income of $6,000 at five percent.
There will be more details shared in the lead up to the luncheon. Please pray that we will be able to answer the interest that is building among county sheriffs and jail administrators across our state. There is room for everyone to participate in funding a partial year’s expense, a full year’s expense, a partial endowment or even a full endowment.
We will be honoring Jason Trice, president and CEO of Jasco Products Company with our Spirit Award and George Rennix, OJPM board president and long-time volunteer chaplain with our Sower Award. I hope that if you are able, you will choose to attend this special time of recognition for two men who have been so “rich toward God.”
Unleashing the captives,
Tim Gentry
Executive Chaplain