FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 4TH, 2022 - STEWARDSHIP AND FORGIVENESS

 FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 4TH, 2022, STEWARDSHIP, AND FORGIVENESS

On Fridays, I write about spiritual things.

Today I’m borrowing some online material called Wellbeing: An Invitation to a Flourishing Life.

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STEWARDSHIP, NOT OWNERSHIP

One of the major challenges we face is to remind ourselves that our bank balances and investments do not belong to us but have been given to us in trust by God. Jesus told a parable of three servants to whom a master entrusted his gold. Two invested their money wisely and were subsequently rewarded for their faithfulness. The servant who did nothing with the money is described as unfaithful and lost everything. This parable applies to any good gift God has entrusted to us, and money falls within this category.

The idea of stewardship goes right back to Genesis chapter two. God saw everything He had made at the beginning of creation and said it was excellent. We could say He approved of it completely and without reservation. When He put Adam into that perfection, it was not to own it but to tend and care for it, to guard and protect it. That was to look after it for the Creator—there is no sense that Adam owned anything.

God gave Adam instructions and warnings about specific behaviors that an owner would give. As we continue in Adam’s line, the same instructions and warnings apply to each of us. King David recognized this in Psalm 24 “The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it. The world and all its people belong to Him”.

So if God owns you, how much more does He own what you claim is yours? Let’s step into this truth and consider all we own as simple things God has given us to look after. Let us surrender all we have to Him today because it is already His.

Thought Point: If God controlled your finances, do you think He would use it the way you are? What would it look like for you to be His steward of the money you have?

Prayer Point: Ask God to help you have the courage to be a good steward of what He has given you.

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THE JOURNEY OF FORGIVENESS

Holding onto unforgiveness is like picking a scab. For some of us, it might feel satisfying and even like we’re achieving something, but in reality, all we’re doing is reopening a wound and preventing it from healing. If it’s so unhealthy, why do we hold onto unforgiveness?

In a parable on forgiveness, Jesus used the analogy of debt. When someone wrongs us, it’s like they’ve taken an emotional loan from us. They’ve robbed us of something, and we want it back. We feel the injustice, and we want the books to be balanced. The problem is that we can never balance them. All we ever end up doing is fueling our bitterness and causing more pain to ourselves and others.

When one of the guards of her concentration camp asked Corrie Ten Boom for forgiveness many years after the war, she felt all the unidentified bitterness within herself resurface. Describing the moment, she says, “Even as the angry vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw the sin of them. Jesus Christ had died for this man; was I going to ask for more? Lord Jesus, I prayed, forgive me and help me to forgive him.”

When forgiving the most traumatic, we will almost always find that we don’t have the strength to forgive. It feels too much like we’re leaving the debt unpaid. Jesus reminds us that as unforgivable as all people’s sins against us feel, they are nothing compared to our sins against Him. Not only does Jesus carry the cost of all our sins, but He also carries the cost of all the sins committed against us.

Even if we can’t find the strength within ourselves, Jesus will always help us to forgive in His strength. When we allow Jesus’ forgiveness to flow through us, we find that the weight of unforgiveness was never carried by the person who hurt us but by ourselves. There is nothing so liberating as being set free from unforgiveness.

Thought Point: Is there any unforgiveness (big or small) that is present in your heart? What would it look like to be set free from this?

Prayer Point: Invite the Holy Spirit to bring healing where you have been hurt in the past. Invite Him to release you from any unforgiveness that is holding you back.

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So - stewardship and forgiveness.

Lately a song from Sunday School when we had an offering. 

We give thee but thine own, whatever the gift may be; all that we have is thine alone, a trust, O Lord, from thee.

I/we don’t own anything.  When we die, whatever we have will be turned over to others.  We may have inherited things from our parents.  The farm that has been in your family for 100 years will someday belong to somebody else.  The house that you built and love, will belong to somebody else.  (And, ultimately everything comes from God!!!)

Forgiveness:

God forgive me - so I have to forgive others!!!  <period> 

Where do you stand on stewardship - giving to support God’s work?

Where do you stand on forgiveness - open and honest forgiving?

LOVE WINS!!
Karen Anne White, November 4, 2022, ©