Stewardship

Today I was challenged to steward my life for eternity. What does that mean? Well I’m still trying to figure that out… but here’s a start. The word Steward comes from the Greek words oikos, meaning “house” and nemo, “to manage.” So stewardship concerns the management of a household. In a Biblical sense, I think of stewardship as taking care of what God has entrusted to us. Stewardship challenges me to manage God’s house, heaven, while I’m here on Earth. But how can I manage God’s house? Why would He leave me with this huge task that I doubt I can even accomplish? Well first off, God wouldn’t. God knows that you are completely capable through his spirit to do this.

God has entrusted us with the Great Commission and to “Go and make disciples of all nations…” Matthew 28:19

When I hear this, I immediately focus in on the word “entrusted.” When we entrust a person with something, we expect that they will take care of it the way we would. For example, I entrusted my pet fish with my friend so I could be here this weekend. I knew that I would have to leave and would not be able to feed my fish by myself, so I asked someone whom I trusted and knew was capable to do it. If I didn’t think she would feed and take care of him, I wouldn’t have even considered asking her in the first place.

Although making disciples is a bit more important than feeding a pet fish, I believe God’s attitude towards us is similar. Would God entrust us with something that he felt we could not accomplish? Absolutely not! He even promises us the resources we need to do it! God gives us power through the Holy Spirit to make these disciples. How could I expect my friend to feed my fish had I not left her fish food to do it with? In the same way, how could God possibly expect us to make disciples of all nations without equipping us? He doesn’t. His power is ready and available to work through us! I pray that we would all be good stewards and good managers of the kingdom by accomplishing the work God has entrusted to us!

Man of Sorrows

“Sent of heaven, God's own Son

To purchase and redeem

And reconcile the very ones

Who nailed Him to that tree “

(Man of Sorrows, Hillsong)

I can’t even wrap my mind around these lyrics. That the Son of God came to die for sinners, but not only die to save them, also be put to death by the very people he was there to save. Can you even imagine? Don’t just read those words, truly try to imagine it.

Imagine you are from a high class family and in humility have decided to serve someone who society deems as poor. Imagine that they are sitting at the dinner table while you wait on them. Imagine if every time you went and kneeled to serve them, they spat in your face. That they criticized every action you did. I really don’t have a good example because I can’t think of anyone who served the way Jesus did. But just imagine. As the one doing the serving and constantly encountering an ungrateful heart, I would grow so weary and angry. I could see myself in this situation just getting fed up and eventually yelling at the person, maybe even kicking them out of my home and telling them they need to be more grateful.

This idea of loving those who persecute us is so hard to grasp because when I examine my own heart, I know that in my selfishness I could never want what’s best for people who hurt me. I don’t have the capacity to love like that. But Jesus does. Jesus came down from the highest of highs, leaving his throne, to dine with sinners. He left all of that while knowing the people he served wouldn’t embrace Him as the King he was. Yet he served unceasingly until his final breaths. He chose to suffer for people who literally spat in His face as He served them.

But this is where my example and the actual thing differ tremendously. Instead of getting frustrated and banishing these people from His presence, Jesus chooses to give them more. He gives them His life! He gives them EVERYTHING.  

What if this is what we began to strive for in our relationships with people in our lives: To love and serve and suffer for people without any limits. To not get angry when people don’t give us the praise “we deserve” but simply resolved to love them because he loved them first.

“We love because he first loved us.” 1 John 4:19

“Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of others.

5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

6 Who, being in very nature God,
    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
    by taking the very nature of a servant,
    being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man,
    he humbled himself
    by becoming obedient to death—
        even death on a cross!”

-Philippians 2:1-8

This is such a difficult challenge, if you were to try to do it alone. But what if we asked, Jesus, the very man who lived it out in His life here to do the same through us!

Let this be our prayer:

“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” –Galatians 2:20