A pretty good portion of my life has been spent in the church. When I is 5-7ish my dad was a youth pastor. 10-14 we lived in Texas where my dad was going to seminary. While we were there we were super involved in a church, so much so that we still keep in touch with a lot of people from there. When I was 14 we moved to Montello, WI where my dad became a pastor at a church plant. At that church I was a student leader in the youth ministry. When I graduated I was a youth leader there. At age 19 I started at Moody Bible Institute, where I was trained to work in the church. When I moved to Chicago to go to Moody I started working in the youth ministry at Winnetka Bible Church, and 7 years later I am still here, working full time in the church. All this to say I have been around church a lot. In my life I have heard a lot of different topics talked about in church and I have seen some topics talked about more then others, mostly for the good. Things like loving others as Christ loved us, pray to God, be a sexually moral man, be humble, Christ is the only way, read your bible, trust in Jesus, have faith in God's plan, so on, and so on. These are all good things that need to be talked about, but one thing that gets talked about some but not enough is STEWARDSHIP. This is actually one of the first things talked about in the bible. In Genesis 1 God creates man and then in a few words tells him to fill the earth and subdue it. God says have dominion over it, and puts him in charge of every thing. In short God is telling Adam to steward the earth, and to teach his offspring to do it too. Later on we see God give the Israelites tons of things to steward over so that they may point other nations to God. In the New Testament we see God tell several parables on stewardship Matt. 25:14-30, Luke 16:1-12, Luke 19:11-27.
In these we see Jesus tell us that he is going to leave and we are going to have to take on some of his responsibilities, using the things that God has given us. So often I think we forget these passages. We forget that everything we are, everything we own is really God's, and we are to use it to further his kingdom. We feel good because we tithe and give God our money, but in reality we are just giving God back what is really his. Or we think that our home is our home, and is used for us, but its not. Our home belongs to God and I need to use it that way. My family is my family, but its not. My family belongs to God, and I need to treat them that way. Everything we have is on lone from God, to use it to show people God! Are you being responsible with your money so you have more of it to use for God? Are you working hard at your job so people around you see God? And so you make more money to do more good for God. Are you using your home to show people God?Are you opening up your home to people? Is your family a safe place for your kids to bring their friends too? How are you using your time? Will you be able to give account to God how you used your time for him? I don't know what God has blessed you with, but I do know God has blessed you. Are you stewarding it well? Do you live your life as belonging to God? This needs to become a hot topic in our lives and churches. We HAVE to understand this idea of stewardship. The more we understand that we are stewards, the more our lives become Christs', which in the end is what are lives were created for. Crazy how that works out...
