ARE YOU A STEWARD?
By Steward, I’m not asking if you are related to Rod Steward or if you have an anglicised middle name of Stewart. But rather I’m asking that are you a steward in the sense of are you taking personal responsibility and care for another’s person property or financial affairs? You may ask , who is this other person that I should take personal responsibility for? That other is none other than God our creator. What is his property; well if you believe in Genesis 1 then you know the answer already. Stewardship is about realising that everything we own and have, including our bodies, time, gifts, talents, capabilities, health, environment, etc is property of our creator and we should take good care of it and use it to His glory. It is a recognition of God’s ownership, sovereignty and lordship over everything we posses and inhabit. A steward takes Christ as his prime examples and tries to live up to the masters lesson that he showed us whilst he was on earth, implementing them in the life to the benefit of those around him lie Christ did.
It does not just end with recognition, like many things with in life, recognition also goes with responsibilities. In Matthew 25 Jesus Christ tells a parable of 3 servants who are given talents ( in this parable talents refer to money but like all parable they have a deeper meaning than that). The one servant is given the least amount of talents, and he decides to bury it ,instead of investing it. Whilst the other two servants all multiply the talents they are given. When the master comes and asks each of the servants about what they did with their talents, the one whose talent did not bear interest because he had buried it, was scorned upon and his talent handed over to the one who had made greater use of his talents and multiplied it.So God has given us, some great possessions, great jobs, great health ,great countries and each of us need to recognise that what we have is due to God and use what we have in showing God to the world. Whether be at work, play, home or at school? Everyone has been given something, little or big, we all have something we can use in God’s service as stewards. But how is this done?
For example at work we, like the first servant who quadrupled his talent ,use our time to be productive, since we are aware that being productive shows God’s character to the world. That God is efficient, so we as his disciples and children are therefore need to be efficient. James 1 :27 says “ religion that God our father accepts as pure and faultless is this :to look after orphans and widows in their distress…” So part of our responsibility as good stewards is to lend a helping hand. If one has the means to help the poor, one should do that, what better way to show that God is love than by providing food to those who are hungry, clothing those who are naked, visiting those who lonely in prison. Was not Christ ,our great role model who did this, God has blessed most of us with Jobs, food and clothing ,whom have we blessed with our own blessings that we have received. One does not need to go to Zimbabwe to be a good Samaritan most of the time it starts at home ,in your street and so forth.
Another element of stewardship is the idea of money and our bodies belonging to God. By recogninizing that God is even God of our wealth, a good steward would always give tithe, so that they may be food in God’s storehouse. Most churches use tithe for church maintenance and welfare programmes. The idea of giving tithe, which means tenth,is a biblical idea that stretches as far as the time of Abraham. It is a sign showing that we acknowledge God’s Lordship over us even our wallet but above all it’s a sign that says we love God more than our money. That we recognise that,even if we need the 10% of our salary, we give it to the Lord because we trust that God will provide, for he is our God our provider. Hebrews 13: 5 says “ keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have because God has said never will I leave you; never will I forsake you”. So as stewards whenever we use up our tithe money it shows that we do not trust God to live up to his word. Nor do we believe in the church being God’s storehouse.
We are also stewards of our bodies cause God through the love of Christ has ownership to of our bodies twice. First as our creator; the creator of our physical body and the universe . Secondly through Christ death on the cross. For by his death we were bought from sin. By his blood we were made sons and daughters of the Most High,so we need to take care of our bodies for they are now the temple of the Lord in which He resides. So we do not do harmful things to it or take narcotics because that is harmful to it. We exercise and show diligence in what we eat ,because like the Hebrew boys and king Nebuchadnezzar’s palace,we are aware of the damage of appetite to the body and soul.
In essesnce a true steward is like the woman in Luke 21 who gives her last two copper coins , which were nothing compared to the rich man who gave lots of money,but Christ counted the woman gift the best because it showed that her heart was in the right place. If our heart beats for Christ, we will enjoy emulating Christ example in every way. We shall not be trapped by our riches, our work nor our properties but instead we will use all these to glorify God. We will,like Christ clothe the naked, feed the hungry,be diligent in what comes into our hands, be faithful in returning what belongs to God and find joy in doing good to others because we are very aware of the great and wonderful good that God bestows on us every day.We will strife to be the best at whatever we lay our hands on cause God wants us to heads and not tails.A god steward will reflect his Masters character to all the world and through our lifestyle people may see the God in you; so what type of steward are you? If you feel like you are coming short remember that, greater is he who is with you than the world and he knocks at your door ,it is just for you to open the door and let him come in and He will do everything through you, if we only surrender our will to Him.
References : www.allaboutgod.com/biblaclstewardship.htm
www.adventiststewardship.com