A Dangerous Point of View

“You can’t stop now”, my pastor said, and he was right!

That was 27 years ago and looking back now I could never have imagined how prophetic his words would become. I haven’t stopped since! I couldn’t stop because of the radical change in my thinking he had invited me to embrace. Moreover, he inspired in me the courage to walk in a totally different direction than the crowd. I had dared to think differently and that opened the door for God to go to work in my life.  

What had changed in me? What was it that I couldn’t stop? The Christian Stewardship view of life is what happened! Our pastor was on fire for this counter-cultural way of viewing life and happiness and he challenged the entire parish to give it a go. I am forever grateful that he did.

Before stewardship my attitude was, “What’s mine is mine!”

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Stewardship taught me that “What’s mine is mine” is a dangerous point of view. It’s dangerous because by making that claim I was denying the truth. The truth is that all good things come from our good and gracious God. That is true of everything we human beings have: cherished relationships with a spouse, family or friends; spiritual gifts like our faith and the hope that comes from having faith; our abilities and talents; the income we are able to earn because of our abilities and talents; the material goods we possess because we are able to earn an income; achievements of human genius and skill; our beautiful and life-sustaining planet. It’s all God’s gift. One day God will ask for an accounting of how I stewarded all these things He gave me. And, Jesus tells us there are dire consequences for having the “What’s mine is mine” view and not exercising good stewardship over God’s gifts…

“And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 25:30)

I hope when I give my accounting of how I stewarded His gifts to me, God will respond…

“Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master“ (Matthew 25:21)

How we view things is how we do things!

John Maxwell

Upon hearing the stewardship message I immediately changed how I viewed all the things I possessed. The truth was it’s all God’s doing. I started to do things differently, taking much greater care for all that God gives me, and more importantly I began to share it!

After stewardship my attitude became, “What’s mine is His!”

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What immediately followed my new view of things was a series totally out of nowhere blessings in my life. These blessings were certainly not of my own doing…I’m not that good. And, neither were they mere co-incidences. It was abundantly obvious to me that they were God-incidences. God was the only possible explanation. I believe they were God’s way of letting me know I was now headed in the right direction. Gone was my dangerous view of things.

Stay tuned for more on the God-incidences in future posts.