Stewardship

Stewardship is an important part of Christian discipleship. It’s more than finances. It’s a picture of our response to God’s grace. Stewardship asks the question, “Are we growing in our response to God?

One of the key ideas in the Bible is that God is our Creator. Right from the first sentence of the Bible, we hear that message: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” This is echoed in Psalm 24: “The earth is the LORD’s and everything in it. The world and all its people belong to him.”

The first principle of stewardship is that God owns everything; always has, always will.

If God is the owner, what’s that make us? We are stewards. We are caretakers of someone else’s property.

We are like the custodians at the schools we attended as children. Custodians don’t own the school but take care of it. We are like the farmers who tend the land, knowing their children will succeed as farmers only if the land remains fertile. We use what we own with a mind to give it to the next generations. We are responsible, not possessive.

Think about that. God owns everything. He even owns us because we have given our lives to Christ. When we give our time or talent or treasure for God’s use, we just giving back to God what he’s given us first.

It’s what we read in the last chapter of Paul’s letter to the Romans:

And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God

because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice – the

kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. Don’t copy the

behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person

by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you,

which is good and pleasing and perfect. (Romans 12:1-2, NLT)

The world says, “I own my stuff, I own my body, I own my money, and I answer to no one.” But stewardship is not conforming to what the world says. Stewardship says God made it all and still owns it all. I’m grateful that God has shared so abundantly with me before I leave this earth. I will respond with gratitude while I’m still on earth.

So, the Compass blog will contain a regular stewardship message. No, it’s not plea for money, although we’ll talk about money. Mostly we’ll talk about God, his generosity, and our response.