Stewardship

This Sunday, we enter into our 3rd week of our focus on stewardship. Using the book "Earn. Save. Give.," this week's focus is on saving.

I have learned a lot about stewardship from the parable of the talents found in Matthew 25" 14-30. I invite you to read that parable, too. (Stop reading this for a moment, if you wish, to do so.)


Everything we have is a gift from God. Everything: the car you drive, the place you live, the job you have, the jobs you've had, the family you were born into, the friends you have, the shoes you are wearing...everything!

One of the dictionary definitions of a steward is “a person who manages another’s property or financial affairs.” In the parable of the talents, a man asks 3 servants to steward his property. Each one responds to this request according to their character. Two servants increase their master’s investment, bringing him greater wealth and honor, and the master rewards them. But one servant acts foolishly and hides the master’s money. He is rebuked and punished. The little he was entrusted with is taken back, and he is abandoned.

Stewardship takes the idea that everything we have is a gift. If all that I am and all that I have is from God, then how should I care for and use it? Psalm 24:1 says, “[t]he earth is the Lord’s and everything in it, the world and all who live in it.” Therefore, I ought to consider why God gave me what I have and use it to those ends. We have been given body, knowledge, resources and relationships, not to squander as we wish, but to glorify God. “For in him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28).

So I invite you to consider how you use what God has given you for the glory of God. For example, I have shoes to wear, and I wear them outside to run and walk, enjoying God's creation. I have a car to drive to someone's house to be with them and share time with them. How do you spend money so that it honors God? How do I steward friendships? How do I take care of the body God gave me? How do I use knowledge and education in the best way possible?

Here is the good news: everything you do can honor God, because everything you have is God's. God is asking you to steward all you have, to manage all that you have. What a gift it is to glorify God!

Prayer:

Almighty God, we thank you for all the gifts You have given us: our lives, our loved ones, all that we have and all that we are. Most of all, we thank You for Jesus, your Son and our Redeemer, who came among us to show us the way to eternal life. Jesus was the perfect steward of your gifts, showing that complete trust in You is necessary. May the offerings of our time, our talents, and our material resources be made in the same spirit of sacrifice that Jesus taught us by His life and death for us. Amen.

In Christ,

Jack