Living on Purpose: With God as Your Center預覽

Day 4 | God Owns Everything

God is creator of all things, and all you have comes from Him. Everything. Your house doesn’t belong to you. The money in your bank account isn’t yours. The next step in your career isn’t about you.

Not even your life is yours.

Every breath you take is a gift from God. “For in him we live and move and have our being...” (Acts 17:28).

Christ died for you and rescued you from sin and death. The apostle Paul tells the Corinthians, “You are not your own; you were bought at a price.” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20).

When we grasp that truth, everything changes. Our goals and motivations. Our decision process. Our five-year plan.

J. Budziszewski, author and professor at the University of Texas, wrote, “Christ doesn’t want a place in your life; He wants it all. He doesn’t want you to fit him into your plans; He wants to fit you into His. You’re called to belong to him.”

So, if our houses, careers, families, and bank accounts don’t really belong to us, why do we have them? The answer is that we’re stewards of the things God has entrusted to us. They are his resources that we have been called to invest and leverage for his purposes.

Take our jobs, for instance. When we see them as God’s jobs that we steward for him, we understand they’re not our jobs to lose. We make decisions from the perspective of living in that job for him. It’s not about the next step on the career ladder. It’s about God’s purposes in placing us in our current role. It’s about keeping our eyes open for people he has put in our path, people who need God’s love and truth.

Here are J. Budziszewski’s thoughts on seeing yourself as a steward:

Maybe you’re thinking, “Oh, I get it. I’m supposed to go into full-time ministry or something.”

That’s not the point either. In a sense, every Christian is a full-time minister, whether he’s ordained or not (see 1 Peter 2:9). God may want you to be ordained, but then again, He may want you to become a dog catcher. He may want you to be a missionary, but then again, He may want you to become an accountant. The point is that whatever He wants you to become, He wants you to become wholly His. If you catch dogs, catch them as though they were His dogs. (In fact, they are.) If you balance accounts, balance them as though He owned the business. (In fact, He does). Give him your nights and days, your coming and going, your getting up and your lying down. Give him your friendships, your dates, and—when the day comes, your marriage and children. Give him your past in humility, your present in dedication, and your future in hope and trust (emphasis added).

Our only reasonable response is to consider the entirety of our lives as living sacrifices, as Paul explains at the beginning of Romans 12:1-8. All our time, gifts, talents and resources belong to God. Seeing yourself as his steward will bring you more joy and freedom than you ever thought possible.

For Reflection

Read 2 Corinthians 5:15-16.

Why didn’t Paul regard anyone from a worldly point of view? What in your life are you regarding from a worldly point of view?

Read Romans 11:33-12:2.

What areas of your life have you failed to surrender to God? Why? What will you do to grow as a living sacrifice?

Read Matthew 25:14-30.

Ask God what investing in your job for him looks like for you.