God owns everything and God gives us everything – every single thing. Every moment of time. Every ounce of talent and ability. Every dime of treasure we earn when we employ our talents through time. This truth lays the foundation of what our mindset should be towards money. Living Stewardship means we embrace this truth. We acknowledge that everything we have and everything we are is gift from God. And so in overwhelming gratefulness, we receive HIs gifts, we manage them well, and in all humility, we respond to God’s love and blessings by generously sharing these resources – including money – with those in need.
This can be a hard teaching for some of us. We may be tempted to down-play or ignore the Church’s teachings and the Bible passages on giving. But the Church doesn’t back down much like what we read in Chapter 6 of John’s Gospel about Jesus’ teaching that He is the bread of life, that we must consume His body and blood or we don’t have life within us. The disciples were incredulous. Many of them left – His words were too hard to accept. But He didn’t back down. He looks intently at us, like He did the twelve, and asks, “Do we want to leave?” Hopefully, we respond as Peter did, “To whom shall we go?”
Let’s stand up for what we believe and boldly state like Joshua that today we will serve the Lord (Josh 24:15). Let’s decide that today we will trust God, put Him first, and give generously and courageously of all of our gifts of time, talent, AND treasure.
Photo Credit: Robert Davis
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