Taking Care Of His Treasures

Taking Care of His Treasures

Honor the LORD with your wealth and with the best part of everything you produce. Then he will fill your barns with grain, and your vats will overflow with good wine. Proverbs 3:9-10

We need to be less quick to possess and more willing to honor God with our wealth in whatever form we find it. Then He will return it to us many times over.

Our lives are all about stewardship—taking care of what has been entrusted to us in terms of our time, our talents, and our treasures. How we end up taking care of them really comes down to our understanding of ownership in those areas of our lives.

In his seminal book The Treasure Principle, Randy Alcorn succinctly recaps some of the principles that apply to stewardship:

• Principle one: God owns everything. I’m His money manager.

• Principle two: My heart always goes where I put God’s money.

• Principle three: Heaven, not earth, is my home.

• Principle four: I should live not for the dot (my present life on earth), but for the line (heading on into eternity).

• Principle five: Giving is the only antidote to materialism.

• Principle six: God prospers me not to raise my standard of living, but to raise my standard of giving.^a

Randy has it right, and even though those principles fall somewhat lightly off our tongues, they are not the easiest principles to incorporate into daily living. We want to do it. We believe we can’t take it with us—at least we jokingly say we believe it, even though our behavior may not validate that belief.

The real crux of the problem that keeps us from wholeheartedly adopting such an attitude is this: we are not ready to admit it’s not ours. We hold our possessions too tightly; we acquire and build more than we need.

Honor the Lord with His wealth—then we are off and running for Him.

Uncommon Key > It all belongs to Him. Start with that truth first, and stay there until your behavior mirrors your belief in that truth.

^a See Randy Alcorn, The Treasure Principle (Sisters, OR: Multnomah Publishing, 2001).