Stewardship. We most often hear this word related to finances. But stewardship goes far beyond how we manage – earn, save, spend – our money. Personal stewardship is fundamentally based in our understanding that heaven, not earth is our home. If we truly believe this and live as though heaven is our home, our lives will look dramatically different.

We need to understand that all we have is owned by God and entrusted to us to be managed for His purposes, not ours. Our perspective on how we view our money, our time, our talents, our health, our environment, greatly impacts how we will use them and ultimately how generous we will be.

When we believe that our car has been provided to us by God and is owned by God, we have the freedom to be generous with it, using it as God would have us use it rather than being overly
protective of it. If God can provide us with a vehicle, he can certainly replace it.

We were designed to be a conduit – to receive from God through other people and to give back to God by meeting the needs of other people. God doesn’t need us but He chooses to use us. We receive from God for the purposes of providing for our families and for meeting the needs of others. When we hold onto too much for ourselves, we end up out of balance.

The Bible has over 2,300 verses that speak about money, possessions and giving, providing us with a comprehensive blueprint for managing money. What does the Bible say about:

• earning
• giving
• spending
• debt
• saving
• investing

We need to start treating the mismanagement of money as a spiritual issue, because it is.