GIVING YOUR TIME, TALENT, AND TREASURE

Alan Ghent

God’s people Israel were repeatedly reminded that He exercised ownership over everything. “To the Lord your God belong the heavens, even the highest heavens, the earth and everything in it” (Deut. 10:14). God said, “the land belongs to Me. You are only foreigners and tenant farmers working for Me” (Lev. 25:23). Israel served as the stewards or managers of God's land and were to strive to do His will. Stewardship is a recognition of God's claim and the claim of the Lord Jesus Christ over all that we are and all that we possess.

That ownership extends to our very selves. Paul said, “You are not your own, you were bought with a price” (1 Cor. 6:19,20). God has the right to determine what He wants of us for He owns each one of us. And in a sense, He owns us twice over—first because He created us, and again because He redeemed us as His own sons and daughters.

He has determined our work, deciding what resources He will entrust to our care to deploy on His behalf. “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Eph. 2:10). Paul’s progression of thought is significant. We are first saved by grace through faith in Jesus, and then we are created to do good works. It’s not that we do good works so that we may be saved; rather, we are saved so that we may do good works! There is a “to do” list waiting for each one of us.

We see the importance of this in the closing chapters of Revelation. “Let us rejoice…for the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready. Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear. (Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of God’s holy people)“ (19:7-8; see also 20:12). His bride makes herself ready, where we might have expected that Christ readies his bride. We might have anticipated that the fine linen would stand for Christ’s righteousness, or perhaps the faith of the saints, but we’re told that it stands for the righteous acts or works of believers. If we’re going to be clothed according to our works, we want to make sure we’re not clothed like the Laodiceans! To reiterate, we are not talking about works done to earn salvation, orto impress others; but Jesus commends work done for the right reasons. As God's stewards, we each have a lifetime of good works awaiting us.

In Jesus’ parable, the unprofitable steward failed to appreciate that it was not his treasure to bury. This is at the heart of Christian stewardship; the resources entrusted to our care belong to our Master, not us, and we are responsible to use them wisely on His behalf. The implications hit home. We are not at liberty to bury all our time in mindless computer games, all our money on frivolous purchases, or our energy in unprofitable pursuits. If we take this responsibility seriously, it will dramatically affect how productive we are in our lives of discipleship.

Concern for the things of God helps us to shift our vested interest from the things of this life to the blessings in the age to come. We’re given an incredible opportunity to trade temporal possessions we can’t keep (Matt.6:19,20) to gain true riches (Luke 16:11) the faithful will not lose. If we give instead of keep, and invest in the things of God instead of the things of self, we store up Kingdom treasure that will never stop paying dividends. In Luke 12:33, Jesus reinforces this linkage: “Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys.” Our giving becomes the conduit that converts the treasures of this age, into currency for the age to come. It is in our spiritual self-interest to be generous with our assets in this life to gain true riches in the Kingdom. Paul exhorted believers to “be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life” (1 Tim. 6:18,19). And Paul, writing of the Philippians’ generosity, looked for fruit that might be credited to their account (Phil. 4:16, 17).

“Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matt.6:21). Jesus' words are direct and profound. What we do with the resources entrusted to us doesn’t simply indicate where our heart is, it determines where our heart goes. This is a compelling thought. If we want our heart to reside in one place and not in another, then we need to put God’s resources to work in that place, rather than elsewhere. As a compass needle points north, our hearts will re-orient toward our treasure.

In Luke 16, Jesus asks, “If you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches?” Our worldly possessions (which, really, are all God's) have a role to play in our spiritual reckoning. All we have–and what we do with it–will be a determinant in what happens in the future. And Jesus adds, “ if you have not been trustworthy with someone else’s property, who will give you property of your own?” This looks forward to the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant, where God promised His friend an everlasting inheritance and “if we be Christ’s then are we Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise.”

We see the importance of this in the closing chapters of Revelation. “Let us rejoice…for the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready. Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear. (Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of God’s holy people)“ (19:7-8; see also 20:12). His bride makes herself ready, where we might have expected that Christ readies his bride. We might have anticipated that the fine linen would stand for Christ’s righteousness, or perhaps the faith of the saints, but we’re told that it stands for the righteous acts or works of believers. If we’re going to be clothed according to our works, we want to make sure we’re not clothed like the Laodiceans! To reiterate, we are not talking about works done to earn salvation, orto impress others; but Jesus commends work done for the right reasons. As God's stewards, we each have a lifetime of good works awaiting us.

– Alan Ghent