Joel C. Gregory: When all you can do is trust in God, you learn that you can truly lean on Him!

“How many times have we had to reach the end of our own resources before we remembered to trust in God, the one steadfast resource of our lives? … When our faith causes difficulties, our first response is to fall back on our familiar resources-people, things, self—and only when these do not help can we truly lean only upon God for our needs.”

Joel C. Gregory, Growing Pains of the Soul (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1987) 108.

“The word translated “steward” is oikonomos. From that word we derive “overseer,” “treasurer,” and “distributor.” From those terms and how they are used throughout the New Testament, we can understand a biblical steward as one who “manages a house for an owner” or one who “tends to the economy that another has supplied.” Quite simply, we have been given the awesome task of keeping God’s house—his creation—in order…

One other foundational truth about biblical stewardship…We are not God’s employees…we are his partners, like beloved children apprenticed in the family business we will one day inherit. God invites us to join him in his mission of revealing his righteousness to a watching world.

Biblical stewardship is an exciting calling, one that makes everything we do an opportunity to collaborate with God. As we serve him and he reveals his image within us, his compassion for those around us actually wells up in our hearts, and we are privileged to express it.”

Jim Liske, CEO, Prison Fellowship Ministries, in the Introduction to Faithful in All God’s House by Lester DeKoster and Gerard Berghoef, edited by Brett Elder (Grand Rapids: Christian’s Library Press, 2013) 7-8.

“Blessed are those who know how to detach themselves from their possessions and their power so as to put them at the service of the needy.”

Pope John Paul II in homilies in New York City, October 1979 and Recife, Brazil, July 1980 as recounted in A Justice Prayer Book: With Biblical Reflections, 10.

With today’s meditation I honor my sister, Heather. It’s her birthday, and it captures her life. She has detached from power and possessions to care for her two sons, her loving husband, and others around her with Christian love. Happy birthday, Heather!

“Our giving is a reflexive response to the grace of God in our lives. It does not come out of our altruism or philanthropy—it comes out of the transforming work of Christ in us. This grace is the action; our giving is the reaction. We give because He first gave to us. The greatest passage on giving in all Scripture ends not with “Congratulations for your generosity,” but “Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!” (2 Corinthians 9:15).”

Randy Alcorn, The Treasure Principle (Colorado Springs: Multnomah, 2001) 31-32.

“If our brother be in want and you can’t help him, you need not make doubt of what you should do; if thou love God you must help him.”

John Winthrop (1588-1649), founder of Massachusetts Bay Colony, in “A Model of Christian Charity” written in 1630 aboard the Arbella.

Though I had read this some time ago, it was shared with me afresh this week by my good friend, Tom Assmus, who along with his wife, Sherry, are models of Christian charity to us. It is a great read! To download it, visit: https://online.hillsdale.edu/document.doc?id=443

“Like a good family portrait, a well-developed Family Stewardship Philosophy captures a beautiful picture of what your family believes about the source and purpose of wealth.

The process of developing your philosophy involves [1] clarifying your family’s knowledge and core beliefs about money, and expressing and examining them to bring them into alignment with the truth of God’s Word. It involves [2] communicating these beliefs through discussion and written statements that note your convictions, objectives, and intentions in a way that others can understand. You will also make [3] commitments about the wealth that is entrusted to you, which practically demonstrates dedication to your core beliefs, as well as to God and your family.

Working through this three-step process of clarification, communication, and commitment is time-consuming but many families can attest to the fact that it is worth the effort. Your Family Stewardship Philosophy can serve to create a lasting legacy that is passed on to your family and future generations.”

Excerpt from “The Generous Family: A Guide for Nurturing Giving at Home” by National Christian Foundation. To work through this process with your family, you can download the complete document from NCF today.

“How can we embrace poverty as a way to God when everyone around us wants to become rich?  

Poverty has many forms. We have to ask ourselves: “What is my poverty?” Is it lack of money, lack of emotional stability, lack of a loving partner, lack of security, lack of safety, lack of self-confidence? Each human being has a place of poverty. That’s the place where God wants to dwell!  “How blessed are the poor,” Jesus says (Matthew 5:3). This means that our blessing is hidden in our poverty.

We are so inclined to cover up our poverty and ignore it that we often miss the opportunity to discover God, who dwells in it. Let’s dare to see our poverty as the land where our treasure is hidden.”

Henri Nouwen, Bread for the Journey August 18 reading entitled: “Our Poverty, God’s Dwelling Place.”

“Money is an integral part of our lives. With so much life revolving around money and with the challenges that Christians have in managing money faithfully and responsibly, we can be thankful there are hundreds even thousands of verses in Scripture which give us insight about money and possessions. The number of references in the Bible on the subject speaks to its significance. It is important for us to spend the necessary amount of time to comprehend how money affects our material and spiritual lives.”

Ron and Phyllis Chewning in Financial Counsel from God’s Word: Five Steps to a Transformed Financial Life (Birmingham, MI: Stewardship Advisors).

Clement [c. 4th century]…gives us a glimpse into the institute of widows [cf. 1 Tim 5:3-16] to that of deaconesses [cf. 1 Tim 3:11]

”…there should be three widows in every church, two of whom engage to pray, while the third undertakes the care of the sick and needy. She is to be willing to give her services and temperate, she is to announce the names of the needy to the elders, she is not to be greedy of gain, not given to wine, that she may be able to watch at night services…”

Book of Clement (c. 4th century) a post-Constantinian document describing the role of church officers, uncovered by Paul de Lagarde (1827-1891) and contained in his Reliquary of Ancient Ecclesiastical Laws, as cited by Gerhard Uhlhorn in Christian Charity in the Ancient Church (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1883) 172-173.

“The services of the deacon are the most fully described in the book of Clement…

He is to minister to the infirm, to strangers and widows, to be a father to orphans, to go about into the houses of the poor to see if there is any one in need, sickness or any other adversity; he is to care for and give information to strangers; he is to wash the paralytic and infirm, that they may have refreshment in their pains.

Every one is to have what he is in need of with respect to the Church. He is also to visit inns, to see if any poor or sick have entered, or any dead are in them; if he finds anything of the kind, he is to notify it, that what is needful may be provided for every one. If he lives in a seaside town, he is to look about on the shore to discover if a body has been washed ashore, and if he finds one to clothe and bury it…

If the deacons are on the one hand enjoined carefully to assist the poor in every respect, the latter have to render obedience and respect to the deacons. This was of special importance, when the question was, to enable the poor to resume work, and to induce them to earn there own living.

There was a female as well as a male diaconate.”

Book of Clement (c. 4th century) a post-Constantinian document describing the role of church officers, cited by Gerhard Uhlhorn in Christian Charity in the Ancient Church (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1883) 164.