• Job had questioned God, but God reminds him that part of the foundational knowledge in approaching God properly is to remember that everything belongs to him
• Are there any things in your life that you can sometimes forget belong to God and not you? What are they? How does this affect how you manage those things?
Psalm 24:1; Ezekiel 18:4
• Not only do all resources and possessions in the earth belong to God, this also stretches to people
• God is the real owner of every single human being including our souls
• How does this change of how we think about our own lives
• How does recognizing that we completely belong to God change how we go about every aspect of life?
Haggai 2:8
• Even money and wealth ultimately belong to God
• Even the money that we invest for our future or use to buy things for ourselves belongs to God
• Do you tend to act like just ten percent of your wealth belongs to God or that all of it belongs to him?
Deuteronomy 8:18
• All of our wealth belongs to God
• He gives us the ability to produce wealth
• We don’t actually own anything, God just allows us to manage his money
• How should Christians act differently with money knowing that it is God’s and not our own?
1 Corinthians 6:12-20
• Christians are to live lives that demonstrate that we belong to God
• We belong to God in an even more intimate way because we have accepted Christ in faith
• That means that are bodies belong to him because he plans on resurrecting them one day
• Everything in the life of a Christian should point to and be done with the resurrection in mind
• The resurrection is our great reward
• Do you invest your time, energy, resources, and possessions with the resurrection age in mind or do you tend to focus on the present age?
Convictions
• Are you prepared to truly treat everything in your possession as though they were God’s and that you are just managing it for home?
• Do you spend more time and energy building God’s kingdom or your own castle?
It is easy as the manager to begin to believe that I am the owner. I need to be reminded from time to time.
ReplyDeleteI'm challenged pretty much every day with some misuse of something God has given me - this is a fact. It takes a moment of reflection to even consider when I am doing this, and then to change. Many days I don't take the time to redirect my life and actions to align with what I know to be right.
ReplyDeleteI think above and beyond this, being unified with my wife takes it to another level. Not only do I need to be a good steward of myself, but also of "the two will become one flesh". Now it is a team effort. Unfortunately I am not a team player many a time.
I guess that's what God's ultimate goal is in his word; to help me out with this...
One of the main areas that I repeatedly reflect on throughout the day in relation to my offering to God is my time. I am a slow learner, and in most of my roles, Christian, mother, student, etc. I am constantly in learning mode, and because of the amount of time that it takes for me to "get it", can be stirred to frustration and stagnation, thus not using my time as effectively as I could for God. I used to think, "If I just kept a calendar, then..." It's not the calendar, it is the deliberate, intentional prayer driven consideration of what my offering to God wth my time should look like. The beauty in all of this is that I have been incredibly blessed in that the things that God calls me to do, I usually receive encouragement from those things.
ReplyDeleteAgh. I feel the battle with this daily! Keeping the resurrection age in mind can seem so foreign, at times. Focusing on the present, so natural. It takes a huge mental effort and continual learning to be where I believe calls us all to be. I do believe and agree with these scriptures(maybe the same thing), but then to put them into actual practice is the challenge. It is so easy for me to just go forward and "do" life. I think constantly remembering to ask, "OK God, what do you want me to do here, where do you want me to go"?
ReplyDelete