Stewardship 101

Stewardship 101

Surely the world is guilty of forgetting that God owns everything that He created. That includes our ability to attain what we call riches. We may boast of what we claim we own, but the Bible is abundantly clear that it is God who owns this world and everything in it. We are merely caretakers. This was the case in the time of Israel, and it is the same in our time.

In Leviticus 25:23, as the Israelites neared the promised land, the Lord said, “The land shall not be sold forever, for the land is mine; you are strangers and sojourners [temporary residents] with me.” In Psalm 51, God says, “I will take no bull out of thy house nor he goats out of thy folds, for every beast of the forest is mine and the cattle upon a thousand hills. I know all the fowls of the mountains and the wild beasts of the field are mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell thee, for the world is mine and the fullness thereof.”

So, everything we claim to own or have authority over belongs to God, and we, as caretakers over His property, must pay attention to how we use it. Are we careful to give back the first fruits of the gain that we enjoy from using what He has entrusted to us? Are we generous toward those who have been given less than we have? We must not forget.

There are approximately seven billion people on earth today, and less than 25 percent claim to be Christian. How many of them, do you suppose, honor God with a tithe, much less a gift over and above the tithe? Most people in the world ignore the fact that God owns everything on Planet Earth. Don’t become one of them. Why do you suppose Jesus said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive”? In part, it is because of the joy experienced in giving back some of what has been given you.

Stanley Roberts, Sr.