Stewardship Redefined (play video first)

When I first became a Christian, I had already been in the financial planning business for 20 years of my life. As a new Christian, I started hearing a lot about the term stewardship. Upon discussing the topic with other believers, I found that it was regarded as a matter of managing personal finances; paying off your debts, saving for emergencies, balancing your budget, investing wisely and giving. These were all the things that I had discussed during my previous 20 years with my non-Christian clients. There was nothing new it was just sound essential financial management that both Christian and non-Christian should be doing. It looked like Christians would have been just as well served to get their stewardship guidance from the “Wealthy Barber” as they were getting it from the Scriptures. Except for the biblical emphasis on giving, which most Christians were ignoring, there seemed to be no differences in their approach. The problem is that there are many nonbelievers and people of other faiths who do a better job of this version of stewardship than most Christians. Stewardship has become nothing more than Christianised financial management.

The term “steward” was used to refer to someone, often a slave, who was entrusted to managing certain aspects of his master’s affairs. The goal was to manage things as the master instructed with the master’s best interests in mind. All the benefits of the steward’s efforts accrued to the master. The master was under no obligation to reward the steward, but the master would always provide for the steward’s basic needs.

The stewards' joy and satisfaction came from pleasing the master. It was a “life” commitment. In order to achieve this the steward had to do more than manage the function that the master had assigned them they had to manage themselves (see my blog on “How We Think Matters”). They had to be totally confident that the master would provide what they needed and, with that being settled, they had to be willing to devote their Time, Talents and Desires towards achieving the master’s objectives and pleasing him. One could say that they had to “die to self.” We must ask ourselves what kind of stewardship we are involved in; the type that centers around our finances and benefits us the most or the kind that devotes our Time, Talents and Desires to please the master. I submit that doing the latter will take care of the former –win-win. To play this video, view this post from your live site.