How are you using God’s gifts (including your financial resources)?
The kind of caring we looked at yesterday is what the bible speaks of as ‘Stewardship’. Wesley speaks of this as that which God has entrusted into our care; “Do you not know that God entrusted you with that money (all above what buys necessities for your families) to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to help the stranger, the widow, the fatherless; and, indeed, as far as it will go, to relieve the wants of all mankind? How can you, how dare you, defraud the Lord, by applying it to any other purpose?”
Biblical stewardship recognises that God owns it all (“The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it” Psalm 24:1): including (but not restricted to) our bank balances and mortgages, houses and cars, earnings, pensions and pets, the birds, the beasts and even black holes. But what gives rise to stewardship is that God places many of these things into our custody. Right at the beginning He says to humankind, “take charge” (Genesis 1:28). Biblical stewardship is to look after the world in which we are placed (“A righteous man cares for the needs of his animal”. Proverbs 12:10). The goals is to develop and sustain the world.
This is the particular sense in which we are called to be stewards of what has been entrusted to us. We are given resources for a noble cause. Biblical stewardship does not decry money and possessions but it does recognise that they have a purpose. This means that before we can work out how to be good stewards we have to discover our purpose, our God-given goals in life.
It is right that we should ask and answer, “how are you using God’s gifts?”
“All Christians are but God's stewards. Everything we have is on loan from the Lord, entrusted to us for a while to use in serving Him.” John Macarthur
O Lord, grant us the grace
to grow deeper in our respect of
And care for your Creation.
Lord, hear our prayer.
O Lord, help us to recognise
the sacredness of all of your
creatures as signs of your wondrous love.
Lord, hear our prayer.
O Lord, help us turn
from the selfish consumption of
resources meant for all
and to see the impacts of our
choices on the poor and vulnerable.
Lord, hear our prayer.
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