Stewardship Jesus' Way - question 5

So what does stewardship Jesus' way mean for you?

Jesus calls people differently to use what they have been given for His purposes.  For some he may call them to give everything material away.  For others He calls them to give up that certain thing, knowing it’s a barrier to a full life.  A doctor doesn’t prescribe the same medicine for every patient.  The “doctor” we are to follow proclaims, “What good is it to gain the whole world and loose your soul?”  How crazy would that be.  Whatever He calls us to give, at whatever moment, His end goal is for us to follow/love Him completely – with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and to love our neighbor with that same completeness.

So can I have both? Having wealth and still seek and align my life with God’s will? Yes and No. Yes, you can from the perspective of a surrendered heart that wants to use what we’ve been given for His purposes.  No, you can’t from the perspective of wanting to keep your lifestyle and fit God into it somehow.  It doesn’t really matter if you have a house in the Hamptons or a hovel in the Bronx, both can be a stumbling block or used as a blessing. In our minds we need to give it all away and our actions test this resolve whether we are truly sold out to God. Who is our Master?  Who do we ultimately depend on – our bank account, our effort or our Lord Jesus?  We cannot love or serve two different Masters.

Certainly people can have wealth and love God...look at Abraham and countless others in the Bible.  The question is: does wealth have us? To whom have we given our heart? It's our heart that God is after.  We must watch our step around wealth, knowing our tendency for it to capture our hearts and become ensnared by it if we don't intentionally and continually forfeit our desires and adopt His.  That being said, God does want us to enjoy things and find contentment. I do believe we cannot find true contentment unless we own a perspective that everything is a gift from God.  Unless He occupies our hearts with joy we grow restless in our selfishness and bored with our striving.  Apart from God, and our purposes found in Him, everything turns meaningless.

On one side of the spectrum people manage their finances in a way that gives them what they want.  The driving force is to get ahead, acquire a certain lifestyle, attaining a mark that we believe will make us happy.  On the other side of the spectrum there are people who simply don’t manage their finances and link it to holiness.  They don’t want to think about it. They believe making money and handling material wealth is somehow worldly and unspiritual.  In reality they may be acting like a lazy, irresponsible steward, covering their sin with a veneer of holiness. Neglecting stewardship of material things, our very lives or creation itself is like giving back the keys to a shiny new car from our earthly father and saying, “No thanks, I don’t want to enjoy your gift because I don’t want to wash it or care for it.”

Surrendering our hearts to God does not devoid us of being a responsible partner in how material things are managed.  It’s a constant struggle to try to find balance, to wrestle with these gifts and figure out how to enjoy them and bless others.  We must learn and keep learning, not avoiding stewardship no matter how hopeless it may seem or what kind of financial mess we find ourselves in. God wants us to participate with Him.  Since we are children of the King we are invited into responsibility of the Kingdom.  If we decide to neglect this responsibility, in this case, neglect stewardship, we become spoiled children who not only want everything, but also want our Father to do everything for us.  That’s not relationship. That’s a recipe for an unhealthy, unfulfilled and unhappy child that no good parent would allow anymore than a restaurant tantrum if they had anything to say about it.

Stewardship Jesus' Way - question 3

Do we have to feel guilty about what we have and not enjoy the things that God has given? 

We are in the top 5% of the wealth of the world, simply because we live in the United States.  Our poorest poor are richer than 95% of the world.  We are blessed.  But now what do we do with that?  Should we wallow in guilt over this or is there a more productive approach?

The mind-numbing affects of affluence can cause even the most faithful to stumble. Affluence hides things that are important.  That doesn’t mean that affluence is bad, but it can be distracting and destructive to values and important practices if we’re not careful.  It erases desperateness and our perception of things that we truly need to the point where we find ourselves naked even though we’re fully clothed.  Affluence can be a subtle thief that takes withdrawals from our accounts of joy - a little here, a little there -lulling us to sleep until one day we wake up emotionally and/or spiritually bankrupt and more desperate than if we had material need. 

Scripture talks about the pitfalls of affluence, but it also talks about the blessings we are to enjoy.  There are times of fasting and times of feasting in a life dedicated to God.  Having His perspective with a posture ready to use these blessings on a moment’s notice surely makes Him smile.  There are people who have the gift of making things fruitful. Without these generous benefactors society would be missing a beautiful part these Givers are called to play. As we discern the negative aspects of affluence – greed, excessive leisure, etc. – we must take care to not lump everyone who is wealthy into a negative category.  Laziness is laziness whether someone has material wealth or not.  Greed is greed no matter the size of the bank account.  I’ve experience incredibly wealthy people with immense hearts for God (and the poor) and I’ve been around the material poor who are stingy and filled with bitterness toward the rich.  I’ve also seen the reverse.  We are called to represent God as stewards.  He owns it all and calls us to receive a full life immersed in His grace. This is distinct and different than having an entitlement attitude – I earned it, I deserve it – that can keep our hearts small. 

Why does God own it all?  Because He made everything.  He gives us our breath every moment, keeps our heart beating in a regular rhythm and causes our synapses to fire in our brains.  He keeps the sun shining so that the earth can produce food, we can eat and have energy to do work with the skills He has entrusted to us to contribute to His balance of all things…life.  Science can describe these things, but is not the reason they happen.

We should hang onto material things only as much as we need to steward them well. To follow the stewardship of Jesus requires discipline.  It can be a rigorous and exhausting exercise to figure out how to use our abundance to meet the needs of others, our own need and be aligned with God’s purposes.  It requires a relationship with God to hear and know His purposes.  It takes determination and discipline to align our purposes and resources with His work.  Let nothing distract us from the things of God and the practices necessary to keep our rebellious hearts disciplined and tuned into true freedom, not the allurement of wealth and the brand of freedom the world is peddling.