L
IFE STEWARDSHIP IS GROUNDED in the founda-
tional truth that God is the Owner of all things. This
truth has far-reaching impact into every area of our lives.
God owns our homes, our cars, our bank accounts, our
investments, our children, our spouses, our bodies, our
time, our abilities — just to name a few of the areas. And
because of this “God owns it all” reality, our understanding
of our relationship to what we possess is radically changed
from thinking of ourselves as the owners of all we possess to
understanding that we are to be trusted stewards or manag-
ers of someone else’s property.
Out of this “we are only the managers and not the owners”
mindset emerges a life-changing question that we cannot
help but ask. And it demands that we ask it on a daily basis.
This life-transforming question is, “Lord, what do you want
me to do with all that you have entrusted to me?”
It is no longer “How do I want to spend my day?” It is now,
“God, how do you want me to spend Your day?”
It is no longer, “How do I want to spend my money?” It
is now, “God, how do you want me to spend Your money?”
It is no longer, “How much of my money do I want to
give to the Lord?” It is now, “God, how much of Your money
should I be spending on myself?”
It is no longer, “How do I want to care for and feed my
body?” It is now, “God, how do You want me to care for and
feed Your body?”
It is no longer, “What kind of house and car do I want to
have?” It is now, “God, what kind of house and car do You
want me to have?”
See how this ownership issue impacts every single area of
our lives?
For those of us who are now asking this profound ques-
tion, there is also a second question that logically emerges as
we seek to answer this first question. And this second ques-
tion is what I want to answer for you. The question is this,
“Exactly how do we get directions from the Owner regarding
what He wants us to do with all that He has entrusted to
us?” “Okay, I’m convinced,” you say, “I want to follow His
directions on how to manage His property. So, how do I get
my directions from Him?”
There are three different ways in which God can and
does personally deliver His Owner directions to us. In this
three-part series, I will begin with the most obvious and
objective way He directs us and end with the most subtle
and subjective way He communicates with us. The first way
God directs us is: Through His Word.
If we want to discover what our Owner wants us to do
with all that He has entrusted us to manage for Him, we
need to spend time in His book. This should be so obvious
that I hesitate to highlight it. Research shows that less than
10% of all professing Christians have even read through the
entire Bible once in their lifetime. So, is it any wonder why
so many believers are living lives that are spiritual contradic-
tions often without even realizing it? If we have never even
read the entire “Instruction Manual for Managers of the
Owner’s Property,” should we be surprised that we might not
be doing all that great of a job of stewarding all His stuff He
has given us to manage?
Here are three ways we ought to be regularly
interacting with His written Word:
We need to be READERS of His Word.
I often have believers tell me that the reason they don’t spend
more time reading the Word is because they are simply too
busy with life to do much of it.
That is interesting in light of two studies that were recently
released. The Forrester Group reports that the average time
Americans spend on the internet is about 48 hours a month
or 12 hours a week. The Nielsen Company’s “Three Screen
Report” – which reports American’s viewing of television
programs and movies on TV, computers, and smartphones
– has now increased to a new high of more than 151 hours a
month or over 37 hours a week. These two reports indicate
that the average American is spending about 191 hours a
month, or almost 40 hours a week engaged in one of these
two recreational activities. That’s about eight hours a day.
My point here is not to bash TV watching or internet use,
but to ask ourselves, don’t we have plenty of available time
each day to be reading the Bible if we wanted to? Can we
be totally honest with ourselves and one another and admit
that spending time reading the Owner’s Manual is far more
a matter of having a desire to read it than it is, having the
time to read it?
So, just how much time each day would it take to read all
God’s Directions to His Managers in one year, if we did want
to? If you were to read the Bible out loud, it would take you
12.5 minutes a day. Since most people read faster than they
talk, reading it silently would take about 7.5 minutes a day
for the average reader to completely read God’s directions
for His stewards once a year.
David expresses his love for being in the Word in Psalm
43