#136 Stewardship(12 may 07)

'...for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare His way;
To give knowledge of salvation unto His people by the remission of their sins'
Luke 1:76-77

Kids still retain a semblance of innocence compared to us sin weary adults. My boy has a pre-emptive style, what we term "a softening the ground approach" before he hits us with a surprise, so that we would not be caught asunder when his surprise package turned up. There must be a genetic reason for this, for I love to surprise my wife with unexpected deliveries of packages for myself.
Last week, his latest attempt to bring home a soon to be homeless but cute, furry hamster from a classmate was shotdown by me, the lower authority without the need to even consider an appeal to the higher authority, the wife.
Having acted as a long-suffering steward to the care of his now departed fishes, and the still very alive pair of terrapins(and future turtle soup), one is never too keen to increase the menagerie, for fun comes with responsibility. His fun, my responsibility.

'The poor and the deceitful man meet together; the Lord lighteneth both their eyes'
Proverbs 29:13

The world is never fair, but a chestful of Spanish doubloons(it might ring a bell if you had watched Pirates of the Caribbean, if not the modern day equivalent would be a vaultful full of Canadian Maple Leaf goldcoins), would help ameliorate the pain, somewhat.

Envy helps to water the seeds of our present discontent and future destruction. But, when one is in the midst of present misery, no different from an oil soaked bird, caught in a mess not of one's own doing, can one not feel truly aggrieved and even envious.

This week, I am reminded of the need to have the right perspective. A boy whose health some of us have kept in our prayers has seen a relapse of his leukaemia.
Another friend, a non-smoker, who has lung cancer has also entered into a more serious stage.
For most of us, it is only in such defining moments, that our perspective of what matters get re-prioritized, but it is no myth that still for many, even when the end is certain, they will still cling on to the things of the world, and not God.

'Remove far from me vanity and lies; give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me.
Lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, "Who is the Lord? or lest I be poor, and steal, and take the name of my God in vain'
Proverbs 30:9

Money to many might be the root of all evil, but the Bible says it is not money, but rather the love of money that leads us to sinful behaviour.
Joseph and Abraham were examples of God fearing and faithful men of wealth whom God used mightily.

How can we be good stewards of the blessings of God?
The common perception is that stewardship is about handling monies, I beg to differ and like to broaden the scope of stewardship to more than monies, and even much more than our time, our abilities, our status in life, even our very all.


'...Behold, I send My messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before Thee...'
Matthew 11:10

Yesterday for me was one of those days of continued troubles, the difference however, was a God given assurance that allowed me to use His given wisdom to deal with the matters at hand, yet without the concomitant fears, angers or other normal human but sinful reactions of the past (God is indeed good),

As I took time with the Lord last night, I was blessed to come across this verse Luke 1:76-77(the opening verse of this sharing) which truly reminds me of what our time on Earth is for.

God never double speak, but He oftens brings us to the coincidences of life and words, as a reassurance of His very will.
As I prepared to pen His latest thoughts this morning, it has always been a very good practice for me to first spend time in His words and the verse I read, Matthew 11:10 (as above) was where He brought me to.

Two different verses, from two different chapters of His Word, but both with the same command.

The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. I am often reminded of how often our self deceiving and lustful mind makes a perfect foil to the wiles and worldly illusions of the devil.
In the great Greek epic Odyssey by Homer, when the victorious Greeks after conquering Troy, sailed back home past the treacherous waters where the haunting songs of the beautiful Sirens, would draw all to their death. The Greeks tied everyone firmly to the masts and whatever would hold them back from their own lustful deaths.

For many of us, that rope that keeps us focussed on God and not on the world, is not that painful experiences of life, where nothing matters except the realization that only God is sovereign.
But rather, from this fallow beginnings of denial to belief, as we begin to know and walk with the Lord our God, as we begin to witness and experience His grace and yet His awesomeness, that deep inside our hearts, is that knowledge of His love, yet the awareness of His awesomeness that will keep us tightly firmly to Him.

My meanderings might not be as long as the Mekong River, but it comes close. But at this juncture, some of you who has been very patient, must be wondering, have we wandered and wondered off-course from the sharing in hand, "stewardship"

''...seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds; And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him'
Colossians 3:8-17

By the grace of God, when He lifts the veil in our hearts, the darkness encapsulating our lives is lifted, and we see Him, His grace, His love, and His glory.
There is this great and indescribable joy and peace, and much as we want time to stand still there, the Lord has not returned as yet.
He wants our response, for He wants to transform us and use us as a reflection of Him for others to ponder upon His love and to want to have the same desire to come into His presence, to let go and let Him.

This is our stewardship.

How do we ensure that the new man that God by His grace has made us, will move from just a clean slate to His likeness.
And how in the process of our own transformation, can we in all faith and obedience be used by the Lord our God to transform others.

It is not just about managing the financial and other material resources that God gives us wisely. Nor is it just about spending the finite life and time He gave us in His work. And drawing on the same line of argument, it is not just about using our position, power, prestige or even prayers to furthur His work. These are all important but it is beyond that.

In a nutshell, it is not about what we think, it is about His will

For these desires for good work and words are good and Godly but underpinning it and even going beyond these human ideals must be a life that is lived moment by moment as God leads, and He will surely do, if we let Him. Lets not be like Jonah, who fled from the presence of the Lord.

''...For the men knew that he fled from the presence of the Lord...........'
Jonah 1:10

but rather,

'...let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.......'
Hebrews 12:2

Every morning, by His grace, I am brought to a new day,
- I not just have to remind myself but must choose to let Him bring me into His presence before anything else in the day
- I have learned, albeit still with some struggle, to ask God what is His will for me now and not what I will like to achieve with His help
- I must remember that in every moment, in every situation, I must learn to take a step back and ask God what is His will, rather than want to let my sense of understanding drive my reaction and desired solutions.
- I am reassured that in the heat of any moment, I might not have heard God right or at all, but He has already taught me what Christ would do, which is, well described in the Book of Colossians, Chapter 3.

Some snippets

'But now ye also put off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth. Lie not one to another, sseeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds'

'..Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering. Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any; even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness. And let the peace of God rule in your hearts....'

Rather than listen to the imperfect messenger, or look upon him, ie me with some admiration or more likely in great aghast for such unconventional thoughts and ineptitude of words, why not look to the Lord our God now and every moment of your life. Then, just maybe, you will like me realize and acknowledge that God is indeed the great I AM.

'..For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God'
John 10:33

God Blesses

Eng Hieang

note
- in all situations, good always come out of it when we look to God. The little hiccup with my website, when it went of the internet space this monday, was not due to a hacker, but some good old-fashioned administrative deficiency on the part of the web-host. It has now been resolved but in reviewing the reinstalled site, I just realized that in a recent sharing titled "Concoctions and Convulsions" I missed attaching the following attachement titled "eating the pudding'(see #185 in http://www.hieang.com)

Not too sure if many of your digestive systems are still working after this latest sharing, but if you do, do open up the attachment. It was done in Mar when the financial markets corrected significantly. Now things are much better, or rather the bubble is getting bigger. Just maybe, there is something to be learnt about contentment and thanksgiving, which are, in my finite mind, essentials for living application of good stewardship