God gave us limited years and made us conscious of that by making us conscious of eternity.ġ1 He has made everything beautiful in its time. We were created conscious of time and most view time as a brief and uncertain commodity.
We live with limited time – it is short and uncertain God made us to live in time, to be limited by time and to enjoy the time He gives us. How you handle, or are a steward of, your time has a major impact on your ability to earn money, the depth and success of your personal relationships, and even your overall health. The key to your future quite literally lies in the way you spend the time you have been given. We have all heard that old proverb (perhaps from Benjamin Franklin), “time is money.” Many are paid “by the hour.” Another old saying is, “Lost time is never found.” Time is also referred to as a gift, which it certainly is. So, let’s focus on being good stewards of this precious and limited commodity, our time. No one gets more no matter how much money or power they have.īut then why do some seem to get so much more done and be such amazing producers? The answer is, of course, that some are better stewards of their time. That means everyone has 31,536,000 seconds or 525,600 minutes every year.
You can live without money, but when your time runs out, you are finished! You have the same amount of this valuable resource that everyone else has, 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, 24 hours in a day and 365 (or 366) days in a year. How precious is it? Reportedly, the dying words of Queen Elizabeth I were these: “All my possessions for a moment of time.” It can be spent or wasted but can never be saved or returned to you. Everyone’s supply is renewed every single day he or she is alive. It is a resource that is universally nondiscriminatory and fairly distributed. 6:21), and our checkbooks are one of the best objective guides to the deepest desires of our hearts.There is a resource you have that is far more precious than your money. Where our treasure is, there our heart will be also (Matt. 6:6–7), but pastors and teachers consistently rank as the lowest paid professionals in the United States.Ĭhrist’s coming did not abrogate the command to bring our tithes into the storehouse, though we often live contrariwise. Worship and education are among God’s chief concerns for His people (Lev. Our priorities rarely conform to the Lord’s. Routine surveys tell us that more than ninety percent of professing evangelicals fail to tithe. Unfortunately, this problem continues in the covenant community even today. In today’s passage, God chastises His people for robbing Him and failing to bring their tithes to the storehouse (Mal. We can waste our resources like the prodigal son did (Luke 15:11–13), or we can put them to good use in the church. Every dollar we spend in one place is a dollar we cannot spend somewhere else, and if our priorities with our time, money, and talents are not the same as the Lord’s, we are guilty of sin. Wise stewardship is vital to living coram Deo, before the face of God in a manner pleasing to God. Our possessions are just temporarily “on loan,” as it were, from God. 24:1), and everything to which we attach our name and regard as our “own” belongs ultimately to the Almighty. Yet “the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof” (Ps. This is a principle that is easy to forget because we like to think of our paychecks, properties, investments, energy, and time as our own.
Ever since then, all people have been tasked with managing their natural resources for the purpose of advancing God’s kingdom. Our Creator instituted the principle of stewardship in creation when He gave humanity the task of exercising dominion over the earth He created (Gen. The way we allocate our time, effort, and money speaks volumes about our heart’s priorities, giving us a clear window into our own spiritual maturity. Stewardship, the wise use of our resources to glorify God, is the final means of grace that we will discuss in our study of five basic practices of Christian piety.
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