Stewardship
In the month of June we celebrate Father’s Day. For those of us who are blessed to be raised by a kind and loving Christian father, Father’s Day is very special. Men sometimes take too much pride in their physical and emotional strength and act like macho men who have to be in complete control of every situation. I was blessed to be raised by a Christian father who, I like to say, was strong enough to be gentle. He didn’t have to force his will or way on anyone else, especially his children. He was confident enough to be himself and offer us the love and support of a father. The proper response to a father like that is love and joyful obedience.
God, our heavenly Father, is the best example of someone who is strong enough to be gentle. He made all things. He knows all things. He is almighty, as we confess in the Apostles’ Creed. If it weren’t for the fact that God invites us to call Him “Father” and come to Him as dear children come to their dear fathers, we would cringe in fear. God is pure and holy. He is perfect. He cannot tolerate sin. And we know all too well that we are sinners. But He does not destroy us as sinners, but rather loves us in an extravagant and generous way, so much so that He sent His only-begotten Son to be our Savior from the power of sin, death and the devil and open for us the door to everlasting life. What a God! What a Father!
A number of years ago in our church body we used a stewardship education approach called “His Love—Our Response.” This effort was designed to help us appreciate and reflect upon the amazing love of our and what our appropriate response should be. It was a good emphasis. It was thoroughly grounded in the grace [undeserved love] of God in Jesus. In our greatest time of need, God came to our rescue and did for us what we could never do for ourselves. He could have destroyed us because of our sin but, instead, He redeemed us by the precious blood of His Son, and through the power of the Holy Spirit made us into children of our Heavenly Father. What amazing grace!
Our proper response is one of stewardship, the free and joyous management of all of life and life’s resources for His purposes. By nature we do not love unconditionally. By nature we do not give generously. But by the power of the Holy Spirit we are no longer controlled by our sinful natures. We are renewed daily to be God’s children in action—His stewards who remember that God is the rightful Owner of all things and we are stewards or managers of that which He has entrusted to us. When our stewardship is a love response we experience great joy. We don’t give generously of our time, talents and treasure because we “have to,” but because we have the privilege of “getting to.”
“Christian stewardship is the free and joyous activity of the child of God and God’s family, the church, in managing all of life and life’s resources for God’s purposes.”
In His Service
Newsletter Article June 2008
