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PRAYER FOR THE WEEK
Jesus, help me stay on top of my school assignments and my closeness to you! Amen.

Jesus told this story: "A man heard his servant was wasting his money and said he'd be fired. 'What will I do?' the servant worried. He figured people would help him if he helped them, so he called those who owed his master money. 'Whatever you owe, now you only owe half,' he told them. The master praised his servant for being smart. Like that servant," Jesus finished, "you won't betrusted with big things like going to heaven if you can't be trusted with small things like money now."

School is well underway now - and so, for some kids, is the habit of putting everything off until the last minute. You may have already been assigned projects and papers and told when tests will be, but you haven't done a thing to prepare yet!

This week's Gospel (Luke 16:1-13) is about a guy like that. It seems like he knows exactly how to do his job well; he just doesn't do it. He wastes his boss' money and lets people get away without paying their debts until they owe huge amounts.

Then the boss finds out and threatens to fire the guy. All of a sudden, he scrambles to work hard. He helps the people with big debts to get back on track and tries to prove he's a good worker - and it works.

You've probably done similar things: left a school project undone until just before it's due or ignored the fact that a test is coming up and then studied like crazy, scared you might fail. Like the man in the Gospel, you hopefully learned that it's important to do your job - working hard in school - all the time, instead of putting things off until the last minute.

Jesus said it's the same way with heaven. That's what the Gospel story was really about: being honest and hard-working all the time and treating people well, instead of hoping you can slide into heaven by being "sort of good." Staying close to God isn't something to put off! [[In-content Ad]]

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