A Stewardship Thought - Christ’s Lordship

By Tim Boyd

February 2012

As I noted in the January edition of the Digest, stewardship begins with recognizing that God has ownership of everything in His creation. This month I wanted to develop an idea that I introduced last month, namely the issue of Lordship.

Most of the time when I talk with people about stewardship, they expect me to ask them to give more money. When I was a pastor, I was often accused of only being concerned about money. I think that the reason this comes up with a lot of pastors is that failures in stewardship are most obvious in the area of financial stewardship. We do need to spend more time addressing time, talent and commitment level.

However, the uses of money, time, and talent that reflect our commitment level are only symptoms of a larger issue of Lordship. Does God have control of our lives or not? Jesus challenged His listeners at this point often.

  • He told the parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30) to emphasize our need to follow the instructions of the Lord with those things with which He has entrusted us.
  • He challenged the rich young ruler (Mark 10:17-31) to give away all of his money because he needed to recognize the Lordship of God in his life rather than the lordship of money.
  • He challenged the legalism of the Pharisees to emphasize that their allegiance belongs to God not to a system of rules and regulations that they had dreamed up.
  • He challenged Zaccheus to quit living his life by taking advantage of others and to start trusting in God.

Paul, Peter, and the other Apostles all indicated that their lives were not their own. They were compelled by the Spirit of God to follow wherever Jesus might lead, do whatever Jesus might command, and pay whatever price Jesus might ask.

What would our stewardship look like if we took seriously the Lordship of Christ? Gone would be the conflict between church member and church leaders over giving. Gone would be the constant struggle to find people to carry on the ministries of the church. Gone would be the protests of people that they really don’t have the ability to do the things that God seems to be asking them to do. Gone would be the sermons in which preachers plead with people to deepen their commitment level to Christ.

Is Jesus really your Lord? How is that reflected in your checkbook? How is that reflected in your calendar? How is that reflected in your use of your abilities? What does commitment look like in your life?

 

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