“Property is a divine trust. Things are tools not prizes. Life is not for self-indulgence but for self-devotion. When, instead of saying, “the world owes me a living,” men shall say, “I owe the world a life,” then the kingdom will come in power.
We owe everything to God but our sins. Fatherland, pedigree, home-life, schooling, Christian training. All are God’s gifts. Every member of the body or faculty of the mind is ours providentially. There is no accomplishment in our lives that is not rooted in opportunities and powers we had nothing to do with achieving.
“What hast thou that thou didst not receive?” If God gives us the possibilities and the power to get wealth, to acquire influence, to be forces in this world, what is the true conception of life but divine ownership and human administration? “Of Thine own we render Thee.” All there is of “me” is God’s estate, and I am his tenant and agent.
On the day of our birth a new lease is signed. On the day of our death accounts are closed. Our fidelity is the interest on God’s principal. “That I may receive mine own with interest,” is the divine intention. So live, that when thy summons comes to give an account of thy stewardship, it may be done with joy, and not with grief!”
Maltbie Davenport Babcock (1858-1901) American clergyman in Forty Thousand Quotations, Prose and Poetical, compiled by Charles Noel Douglas (London: George G. Harrap & Co., 1917) 1675. Babcock was the author of the famous song, This is My Father’s World.
I am speaking on faith and work in God’s economy in New Hampshire tonight. Pray for me as I connect with New England pastors and lay leaders at EFCA Camp Spofford. Faithful stewardship is at the core of my message, and it is aptly summed up by this zealous clergyman, Babcock, who ministered in New England many years ago.