another kind of soap box

As you probably know, I have some opinions about certain things, and am typically not afraid to share my convictions with others. Of course, that is very evident by how I spend my prime working hours while on campus (and even now while I'm building my team of ministry partners), but while I love to talk about God and His work, I have another similarly-related soapbox to stand on after some training I received this week.

In addition to the ministries of evangelism and social charity is another one upon God's heart--faithful stewardship. Jesus Himself spoke and taught on money more than any other topic; He knew the importance of clearly laying out examples of godly finances for us!

This week at my Campus Crusade MPD training conference, we focused much of our time on recognizing our role in relation to what God has entrusted us (after all, He made everything, and therefore, it's ALL His anyway...), and how to faithfully steward these resources. I have to say that I was simply PSYCHED to learn more about this critical area of high importance, and that the concepts we were discussing are neither difficult nor confusing. In fact, I have a great conviction now that faithful stewardship of God's resources (especially money) is the key to living a life of freedom as God intended!

Since this is a topic I could rave about for pages and pages, I'll try to keep my notes to a short post for now, but the basics are as follows:

1. God owns everything, we are entrusted some of His possessions to steward (which means to care for as God would desire!).
2. He longs for us to be DILIGENT EARNERS.
3. His first priority for our stewardship is that we would be GENEROUS GIVERS.
4. Next, He calls us to be WISE SAVERS, making effective decisions to invest for the future, while not hoarding more than we need.
   
5. We should honor God by being CAUTIOUS DEBTORS (contrary to public opinion, debt is NOT unavoidable or expected. We CAN live debt-free!).
6. We also should be PRUDENT SPENDERS. This means we live a "spartan" lifestyle, not indulging in lavish living, but making modest and moderate choices for our consumption.

I was very encouraged by these concepts, and will probably post some specifics about each at a later time, but wanted to share how exciting faithful stewardship is!

Just think: God has entrusted you with some of His bounty, and He is allowing you to allocate and care for His investments as He would desire. What a great opportunity we have been given by God!