Paul tells the Corinthians, “Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful.” This requirement extends beyond the superficial level of completing tasks or returning borrowed items. We each carry a responsibility for faithful service to God because we ourselves and everything we own has been entrusted to us by our heavenly Father. The Psalmist tells us, “The earth is the LORD’s and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it.” Nothing that we have is really ours; God has only loaned it to us to use for the short time we have to live.
When God created Adam and Eve, He entrusted the care of His creation to them and appointed them trustees over His property. The Garden of Eden did not belong to them, but they were put in charge of tending and keeping it. “The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.”
What are we doing with the things the LORD has entrusted to our care? Do we act like they are our own, or do we treat them as we would treat a valuable possession someone has loaned to us? Certainly if we borrow another person’s car we do not want to put a dent in it. When Elijah went with the prophets to build a larger meeting room, we read, “As one of them was cutting down a tree, the iron axhead fell into the water. ‘Oh, my lord,’ he cried out, ‘it was borrowed!’ ” He felt a greater sense of responsibility for property he was using that belonged to someone else.
We need to develop this attitude towards all the things with which the LORD has blessed us. There should be no such thing as pride of ownership for anything that we possess. God allows us to use our home, our car, and even our money to see what we will do with them to serve Him. Paul told the Corinthians, “For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?”
We must not be puffed up by the worldly possessions God has given us to test us. Recall that even good King Hezekiah succumbed when God left him to test him, and he showed off all his riches to others. We later read that “Hezekiah repented of the pride of his heart,” and the LORD forgave him.
We need to be watchful so that, if we have become proud of our possessions, we also have a change of heart and repent as did Hezekiah. The more we have, the more the Lord expects from us. Jesus tells us, “From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.” For this reason Jesus warns us, saying, “So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches?”
The Lord tests us just as He tested Hezekiah. How are we doing? In Jesus’ parables about pounds and talents, the master who went away returned to determine what his servants had done with what he left in their care when he went away. Our Lord will soon be returning to call us to his judgment seat. Each of us will have to give an account of what we did with what the Lord has given us. We must not hoard what we have but use all the gifts God has given us to serve Him.
Is our car being used for the LORD’s work or our own? What about our home? Whom do we invite to eat with us? Jesus specifically mentions details of daily living in his instructions in the gospels: “When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”
The day will soon be here when we must give an account of what we have done with the worldly things God has loaned to us. We cannot take them with us, so we are expected to use all of them now in our service to our King. Remember, Jesus said that we will be held accountable, and if faithful will be rewarded when he returns. “Behold, I come quickly: and my reward is with me, to render to every man according to his works.”
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One