Stewardship

What do you think it will be like to be alive when Jesus returns? You’ve spent your life on this earth for however many years you’ve been alive and then boom, Jesus comes back and he’s standing at the door of your house. What do you do? How do you feel? What will that day be like?

In Matthew 25:14 – 19 Jesus says…

¹⁴ “…it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted to them his property. ¹⁵ To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. ¹⁶ He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more. ¹⁷ So also he who had the two talents made two talents more. ¹⁸ But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master’s money. ¹⁹ Now after a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them.

So the day of Christ’s return will be like the day the boss man gets back from a trip and wants to see what you’ve done with his business. He owns his business and he owns you and he wants to find you faithfully stewarding what belongs to him.

This is a key principle in the Scriptures. Nothing you have belongs to you. Everything you have from the breath you breathe to the clothes you wear to the car you drive to the house you live in belongs to the Lord. God alone is the owner of all things. He owns the cattle on a thousand hills and he owns the grass too.

And the day he returns will be like a day of settling accounts. A day of reckoning. A day of reconciling. Some people will have lived like wise stewards or managers of what the Lord has entrusted to them and other people will waste what God has entrusted to them. Which side of that fence do you want to be standing on?

The Lord is looking for wise managers. He will trust people with true spiritual riches if they have been found faithful with small earthly riches. Your earthly possessions and wealth do not belong to you but they are small in comparison with the responsibility of spiritual matters.

And the truth here is that the Lord has given you and I so much earthly wealth to be wise stewards of. We are among the wealthiest nations in the entire world. The talent you have here in America that earns you the minimum wage of $9.00 per hour will earn you less than $1.00 a day in other countries.

We have a tendency to measure our worth and our ability by the amount of money we earn. But in the Kingdom of God our worth and our value comes from the God who placed his stamp or his image on us and then purchased us through the cross of Christ. We are called to be faithful with what he’s entrusted to us.

Is that you? Are you a faithful manager of God’s wealth? Will he find you to be a trustworthy steward when he returns? Will he find you investing what he’s entrusted to you? Or will he find you wasting what he’s entrusted to you?

Randy Alcorn in his helpful book called “Managing God’s Money” says this about being a faithful steward. He says “Servants seek to be trustworthy, to handle their master’s estate in a way that would please him. They do this until the master returns or until death, no matter how many years it may be until then. Stewardship is the servant’s life calling. Resignation isn’t an option.” My prayer is that the Lord would cultivate within us the heart to steward what he owns wisely and faithfully.