Christian Stewardship In Action
Christian stewardship is partnership with God at work in the world. The entire phase of Christian experience is served by it. All that a child of God is and has is included. The new birth is the point of beginning. The final accounting before the judgment seat of Christ marks its close.
This stewardship is not something new. Throughout the entire Christian era redeemed souls have entered into partnership with God. Before this period, Old Testament saints knew the deep joy of stewardship and were the recipients of Heaven’s fathomless blessings.
Faithful stewards are among Heaven’s choicest gifts to the Church. In them and through them the Lord is honored and .the kingdom of God is constantly extended in ever widening circles. In this moment God is seeking each reader of this brief message as his faithful steward. Will you in this opportune moment let him have his way with you?
All titles, of everything we possess are vested in God. His is the silver and the gold, the beasts of the field, and the cattle on a thousand hills, the earth and the fulness thereof. All souls are His, and every child of God is bought with a price, the Precious Blood of Christ.
In the Old Testament, men recognized the sovereignty of God by bringing to Him their tithes and their offerings and by observing His sabbaths. In the New Testament this recognition was continued by surrendering every possession to Him.
Christian stewardship is divided into three parts: the stewardship of wealth, of talent, and of time. All of these things are God-given and must be considered a trust and not a prize. Whether the Christian possesses one or more talents, they are all divine gifts. As talents differ in number, so they differ in kind. Back of this two-fold difference is the wisdom of God. To serve God effectively in the time and place of his choosing, special talents are needed and for this reason there is this distinction. Talents do not come to anyone all wrapped up and ready to use. They lie buried in hearts and lives. First they are discovered, then developed and put to work.
The variance found with goods and with talents is not found with time. The Christian steward, whether old or young receives day by day, not more and not less time than his fellow stewards. Time also is God given. The faithful steward recognizes this. He starts and he closes every day with God. Where ever he is and whatever he is doing he places first things first. He uses all moments well because he knows that time ill-spent incurs an eternal loss.
The possibilities of Christian stewardship are boundless. As a result of it Christian lives and homes have been transformed, greed and coveteousness have been overcome, greater missionary and gospel efforts have been launched. and God has been exalted and His kingdom expanded.
God is never enriched or impoverished by our returning to Him, or our withholding from Him that which is His. These experiences come to us, either when we invest our possessions in the cause of Christ, our lives are enriched, or when we withhold from Him that which belongs to Him, our lives are impoverished.
Beloved in Christ, the present need is not for more offerings or collections, but a generation of Christian men and women who will recognize God’s sovereign ownership. Just now our Lord is seeking such stewards to be His representatives in a broken, bleeding, and blundering World. Will you be one of them? You can be if you will. Right now the Lord is waiting to fill your life to overflowing and to send you forth a faithful steward.