To be a Christian (i.e., a person who’s trusting Jesus for the forgiveness of sins and the gift of eternal life) means to have been born again (1 Peter 1:3) and adopted into God’s family (Eph 1:5) as his dear children (John 1:12-13); to be heirs with Christ (Rom 8:17); to be God’s temple (1 Cor 3:16), his workmanship (Eph 2:10), his flock (John 10:27), and so on—so many facets of God’s grace!
Another helpful way to describe our relation to God is this: we’re stewards. God entrusts to his church and his people everything we have. And so, we don’t own anything besides what we’ve been given. We’re stewards—caretakers of his blessings.
“What do you have that you didn’t receive?” (1 Cor 4:7). Answer: nothing. It’s all from God—“life and breath and everything” (Acts 17:25). So, from first to last and in every way, we are recipients: recipients through and through.
How, then, should we handle all of God’s bounty entrusted to us? Jesus gave us a key principle in Matthew 10:8: “Freely you have received, freely give.” We’re not put in charge of God’s blessings in order to hoard or hide them (Luke 12:13-21), but to share his gifts with the world. We’re blessed to be a blessing (Gen 12:1-3).
In a church I served in the 1990s, we rehearsed this truth in song after the offering: “We give Thee but Thine own, whate’er the gift may be; all that we have is Thine alone, a trust, O Lord, from Thee.” Is that how you see your time, talent, and treasure?
All we have has come from God, and, ultimately, it belongs to God: “The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it” (Psalm 24:1). And not just things—people too; we ourselves belong to God (Psalm 100:3). And so, when we take care of our bodies and families and homes and friendships and minds and money and church resources, and in the way we invest our time and energy and God-given gifts and abilities, we are putting God’s goods to work. May the Lord be honored in our stewardship!
