Question
Gramps,
Do I need to leave everything I have, savings and house to the Church in my will? Or is it okay to leave my worldly goods to my children?
Allene
Answer
Allene,
Thank you for your question.
The short answer to your question is “You do not need to leave everything to the Church unless you believe it is the best thing to do.”
I need to start by pointing out that as a “principle”, the Law of Consecration has remained the same. But the “wording” and “procedures” have changed over time.
The principle that has always remained constant is comprised of four points:
1. Ownership: All things are the Lord’s. We may have earthly authority over property. But we need to remember that everything is really the Lord’s.
2. Stewardship: Those things that we believe we have earthly authority over are really the Lord giving us stewardship over some of “His stuff.”
3. Agency: The Lord has given us agency to exercise judgment and to choose right or wrong.
4. Accountability: The Lord will hold us accountable for how we exercise our agency to execute our stewardship over His stuff.
To define what it is and how we practice it today, I’ll use the following wording:
“We dedicate our time, talents, and means with which the Lord has blessed us to the building up of the Kingdom of God.”
Given the nature of your question, I will focus on financial means. I’m assuming you have enough wealth that you would be scrupulous about how you should dispose of it.
How do we best dedicate all our wealth? We can focus it all in one avenue. We can spread it all out over many different avenues. Where can we do the most good for the Lord and His children?
Even the Church doesn’t use all our fast offerings in one place. They’ve recognized that organizations like The Red Cross may already have an infrastructure in place to do many things in their area of specialty where the Church doesn’t have such infrastructure. So, the Church has simply asked them what they need. Some of it was material. Some were financial. And they gave that help to The Red Cross to do what they do. Then they require accountability to verify that it was all used in the way that it was intended.
(I’m not saying you have to give to The Red Cross. I’m just giving an example of how the Church also utilizes existing earthly organizations to do good works.)
We all have specialties and areas of interest that speak to our hearts. Many of them are where the Lord would want us to spend our time, talents, and means.
One important thing to consider is that our families are where we can do the most good. That is where we have the most influence. But how are they going to use that wealth? Do your children have good heads on their shoulders? Are they going to be responsible (financially and otherwise) with “The Lord’s Stuff”? Are they going to raise their children in righteousness? Do they need help to do so? Sometimes financial assistance helps. If they are struggling financially due to things out of their control, they may not have the peace of mind to think about spiritual things. Sometimes it hinders them because they were irresponsible with money before. So they’ll be irresponsible with even more money. You’ll need to make that judgment.
In the Parable of the Talents, the Lord tells us that if we don’t want to do any good with what the Lord has given us, He won’t be inclined to trust us with more. Don’t worry, I’m not preaching the Prosperity gospel (as I understand it). I’m preaching what Jacob preached. I hope you understand the difference. The world has its rules about making money. The Devil and his minions have their ways of making money. But the Lord has His rules on making money and how we exercise proper stewardship over that.
In summary, if you believe your children will be good stewards of the money you’ve been blessed with, then let them exercise that stewardship. If you honestly don’t know, then I don’t think it would be wrong to leave everything to the Church either. But it might be a good idea to not put all your eggs in one basket.
Gramps