Stewardship - Day of Reckoning

September 29, 2014 at 7:59am

There is an important dimension in the parables about the talents and the pounds that we must not miss. In Matthew 25 “the master” (vs. 19, NIV) went on an extensive journey and returned after a long time to settle the accounts with His servants. In Luke 19 we are told that the “man of noble birth” (vs. 12, NIV) went to a distant country. While on His mission, He was made King and then “returned home” (vs. 15, NIV).

Jesus clearly referred to Himself. He wanted His disciples to know that He was going away and that it would take a while before He would come back. But when He returns He will ask for an account of what was done with what we have been given.

On this quarantined planet, the whole purpose of stewardship is taking care of what the Master has entrusted us with while He is away. When we live in perfect wholeness with Him, it will be much easier to know what He wants us to do with His blessings, but only because we will have practiced now.

While we wait, we live with a purpose. It is not a waiting in idleness, but we wait as dedicated disciples who are keen stewards over all we have been given. “We are to be vigilant, watching for the coming of the Son of man; and we must also be diligent; working as well as waiting is required; there must be a union of the two. This will balance the Christian character, making it well developed, symmetrical. We should not feel that we are to neglect everything else, and give ourselves up to meditation, study, or prayer; neither are we to be full of bustle and hurry and work, to the neglect of personal piety. Waiting and watching and working are to be blended. ‘Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord.’” (White 1952, p. 23)

We are waiting for the Owner of everything to return. Soon He will come and will want to know what we have done with our gifts, our time, our physical strength, and our material resources. The fact that He comes to inspect the results of our faithful stewardship should not in any way frighten us. The accusation of the servant who had buried his talent and refused to employ it usefully, that the master was a “hard man” who wanted to harvest where he had not sown, was totally false. Note that the servants who had been faithful stewards did not share this negative view. Every effort they had put into their stewardship assignment was fully worth it when they heard their master say, “Come and share your master’s happiness” (Matt. 25:21, NIV).

Stewardship - Our Material Possessions

Stewardship - Our Material Possessions

September 25, 2014 at 7:31am

Fact number one: Everything begins with God. God owns everything. And He gives us the strength to work and make a living. Those who say, “It is all my own hard work,” forget a vital truth, which is that it was God alone who enabled them to earn what they did.

Fact number two: God takes first place in all we have and do, including our use of money. Before you spend any part of your money, make sure you have set aside your tithes and offerings. Then spend the rest responsibly, always aware that stewardship extends to the use of whatever money you have been entrusted with.

Fact number three: God expects His people to return to Him at least 10 percent of their wealth. That was the rule in the Old Testament, and that principle has never been rescinded. In Old Testament times the tithes were received by the priests and used for the support of the sanctuary services. Likewise, today our tithes are received and used for financing the worldwide gospel commission that God has entrusted to His church.

Fact number four: The more we give, the more we are blessed. Try it, and you’ll see for yourself the truth of the words that “it is more blessed to give than to receive.” (Acts 20:35, NIV). Don’t, however, get the idea, often propounded, that these blessings are necessarily temporal or financial! If we look at giving tithes and offerings as a get-rich-quick scheme, our problems are far deeper than a stewardship issue!

Stewardship - Talents and Gifts

Stewardship - Talents and Gifts

September 26, 2014 at 8:08am

If there were a prize given for the clearest explanation of the all-encompassing profound concept of Christian stewardship, Jesus would have easily won it with His parable of the talents.

Reality number one: We all have talents. Note in the parable that all the servants receive one or more talents. No
one is left without some talent. That is the first truth Jesus wanted to impress upon His disciples.

Reality number two: We do not all have the same number of talents. It is a fact of life that we will have to accept. Some people are gifted in many ways while others are not so multi-talented. Those who have several talents
should never look down upon others who have fewer talents. Jesus’ point is clear: The quantity of our talents is not the most important; what we do with whatever we have been given is what matters.

Ellen White writes, “The Lord will not require from those who are poor that which they have not to give; He will not require from the sick the active energies which bodily weakness forbids. No one need mourn because he cannot glorify God with talents that were never entrusted to him. But if you have only one talent, use it well, and it will accumulate.  If the talents are not buried, they will gain yet other talents. (Nichol, Volume 5, p. 1100)

Reality number three: Some refuse to use their talents. Some never recognize the talents they have. Sadly, no one reminded them of their gifts. Or they did realize their gifts but, for a variety of reasons, refused to invest any energy in developing them. Perhaps they spent their time, as in the quote above, mourning that they didn’t have someone else’s talent. What a loss!

Reality number four: Not using your talents is a serious business. The “worthless servant” gets no second chance. He is thrown “into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matt. 25:30, NIV), a symbolic description of the utter nothingness of eternal death. Not using what God has entrusted to us not only impairs us in this life but jeopardizes our eternal life. This means that the issue of being faithful stewards is not something that belongs to the periphery of our Christian experience. It is the vital characteristic of discipleship.