God owns everything

The first principle of stewardship is that God owns everything. God made it. God keeps it in being. God has a purpose for it all. Creation reflects the splendor of God.

God says to Job: Everything under Heaven belongs to me (Job 41:11). King David sings in worship: The earth is the LORD’s and the fullness thereof (Psalm 24).

Nebuchadnezzar, the greatest king of Babylon, serves as an object lesson on the significance of acknowledging the ownership of God. 

Daniel records how King Nebuchadnezzar took credit for all the lands, wealth, and power he amassed: I myself… by the might of my power… for the glory of my majesty (Daniel 4:30).

No sooner were the words out of his mouth, that the King went cuckoo for cocoa puffs, as they say, going to live in the wild with animals, and feeding on grass like them.

And so did he remain until he acknowledged that it is God who gives what God wills, to whom God wills (Daniel 4:34).

Like King Nebuchadnezzar when he came to his senses, we affirm that everything came into being only through the invisible God (Hebrews 11:3).

 

This is part of a teaching document written by Archbishop Michael Jackles titled,
"How to be the Church of the Poor, for the Poor, Stewardship as a Way of Life"
which was published in August of 2021.

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