Archive for stewardship

94 - The Good Stewardship of your family - site

The Good Stewardship Of Your Family Is A BIG Deal [Ep. 94]

Posted by Carey

· Wednesday, May 3rd, 2017

Good stewardship is about more than money and posessions…

Since the recent movies about Spider Man, most of us are familiar with the quote that Peter Parker’s Uncle Ben says to him, just before he dies…

With great power, comes great responsibility.

I’ve always wondered how good old Uncle Ben even had a hunch about Peter’s “super power” – but I digress.

Uncle Ben’s statement is true, I guess – but it falls far too short. Responsibility is not only for those who have some “great power,” it’s for those of us who have a great life. And all of us qualify there.

It took me 45 years of life, 23 years of marriage, 5 kids, and a TON of God’s grace to truly “get” what I am praying you will get from this post. It’s my prayer that the LORD will do a work in you to help you get it much sooner. So, let me start by telling you about the day I had my first deep convictions about the issue…

My good stewardship story

My wife and I married in 1989, and in 1991 our first son Aaron was born. One morning after we got him home from the hospital I was sitting in his room doing some reading. Given the circumstance, it probably won’t surprise you to know that I was reading a book on the subject of fatherhood. As I was finishing up the last page of the book that morning, the very last sentence caught my attention in a way I’ll never forget. Though I don’t remember the exact words, the idea was this:

“In the end, what matters is that I am a good husband and an effective father. By comparison, nothing else matters.”

That last statement hit me right in the heart. “By comparison, nothing else matters.” It was an extreme statement, and it got me thinking. My mind began to create a hypothetical situation similar to what the author was suggesting. I found myself imagining the following, and it changed my life.

I saw myself as an old man, looking back on the events of my life. I imagined being wildly successful as a minister of the gospel (since full time ministry was where I was headed). I thought of the most extreme and successful example I could, a “ what if” scenario. What if I were able to become a widely known and effective evangelist like Billy Graham? What if I were to become a well-known author and speaker, like Chuck Swindoll? What if the LORD chose to bless me in such an unbelievable way? Surely that would be a life to be proud of. But how would it be if, in the midst of that degree of ministry success, the members of my own household did not evidence genuine faith in Christ? What if the demands of ministry, as important as they are, drew me away from diligently shepherding my own family?

My newborn son was lying in his crib, 6 feet away. I closed the book and walked over to the crib where he was sleeping. He was a treasure beyond compare; a staggering gift with which I had been entrusted. To see him eternally lost because of my own ignorance, negligence, or laziness was an unbearable thought, and a regret I couldn’t imagine living with. That is the first time I remember being aware of a vital truth that has continued to shape me to this day.

Before I am anything else, I am a follower of Jesus Christ; and as a follower of Christ, I am responsible for everything and everyone He has given to me. I am a steward.

In that moment, what that meant was this:

If I were to succeed in any other realm but failed in leading my own family to a lasting, genuine faith centered around Christ, then I would be a failure in life. I have come to believe that is the way God sees it. My family is one of my greatest responsibilities. They are my first disciples. And the fact that I will someday answer to the living God for the leadership of my family has become a powerful and constant motivation in my life.

What I learned that morning has deep implications for how I go about life. For example, I cannot serve my family well, if I am not well. I cannot lead them if I am unable to lead myself. Areas of my life that once seemed unrelated to the leadership of my family have come into focus as direct contributors to it. My health, my work, my lifestyle choices, my finances, my ideas and dreams, the relationships I have with people outside my immediate family – these are just the beginning of the things that directly impact how I steward the family God has given me to lead.

Practically speaking, here are some examples of what it means for me to carry out that great responsibility:

If my family is to be honest and trustworthy, I must take the lead in being honest and trustworthy myself.
If I want my children to be physically healthy, I have to set the pace by stewarding my own health well.
If I want to raise God-fearing kids, I must first fear God myself.If I desire them to be students of the scriptures, I have to set the example for them to imitate.
If I long for prayer to characterize their lives, I must first be a man of prayer myself.
If I want love and godly character to be the hallmark of their lives, I must first learn to walk in the power of the Spirit to be those things myself.
And the list goes on, and on, and on, and…

DO YOU GET IT?

Before you read any further, I want you to consider how these things apply to you.

Are you a husband?
A wife?
A parent?
A grandparent?
For what and whom are you responsible before God?

This website is about YOU, not someone else.

It is about your great responsibility before the living God for the life, people, and things He’s given you.

It is about your good stewardship before God. Have you taken the time to consider the true weight of responsibility all of that is? Once you see it, what will you do about it?

In everything I post on this website, I want to help you stoke the flames of godly accountability for your own life and your own family until that fire of responsibility burns strongly in your heart. Whether you are a dad like me, or a mom, or a grandparent, or an older brother or sister, our LORD desires to use you to make an eternal difference in the lives of those He’s given you to shepherd. You are an integral part of His plan to spread His fame and blessing throughout creation.

I exhort you to let that responsibility weigh on you appropriately so that you will be motivated to be intentional about fulfilling it.

Good stewardship, under the leadership of Christ, is the issue.

Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect. “Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his master has set over his household, to give them their food at the proper time? Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions. But if that wicked servant says to himself, ‘My master is delayed,’ and begins to beat his fellow servants and eats and drinks with drunkards, the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know and will cut him in pieces and put him with the hypocrites. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. – Matthew 24:44-51

It’s possible that you’ve read this far and can’t say you personally know Jesus as your LORD and Savior. If so, nothing on this page really matters to you… not yet. You need to become a part of the family of God, through faith in Jesus Christ before it can. Please… don’t pass off the opportunity to know for sure that you are forgiven and accepted by God Himself. Take the time to go to this link, and prayerfully consider what God has done to show His love to you. You’ll be glad you did.

Q: How seriously are you taking YOUR stewardship before God?

Q: What steps will you take to make changes in the right direction?

Categories : Podcast

Tags : Christ's Lordship, Christian life, family responsibilities, great power comes great responsibility, responsibility before God, spiderman, stewardship

Do you know how you’re wired?

Posted by Carey

· Monday, May 14th, 2012

How you’re wired matters… and you need to understand it if you’re going to live out your great responsibility.

When I was a kid I was part of the Boy Scouts. Every year we did the “Chicken Creek Hike” (yes, I grew up in the south). One year, after going on the hike for the past 3 years, it was my turn to lead the hike. It was a weird feeling because I hadn’t paid a lot of attention about HOW we got to the destination on my previous hikes. I just followed the leader.

But this time, I was the leader. And I wasn’t sure where I was going.

Do you know where you’re going?

You can’t lead others to be healthy, unless you are healthy. You won’t be able to lead others, until you lead yourself – and I’m sure you know, that’ not as easy as it sounds. We are complex creatures.

God made us beautifully complex from the moment of creation. Unspoiled by sin, I’m sure Adam and Eve were a wonder to behold. I wish I could have known them (someday I will). But when sin entered the picture it twisted their (and our) beautiful complexity into a mess that is itself complicated beyond recognition. Emotional instability, mental illness, birth defects, personality issues, and many more such things are examples of what sin’s presence in the world has done to us. Because of that fact, every one of us has been tainted by sin’s far-reaching effects in multiple ways, from the inside out.

THAT is a big part of why it’s extremely difficult for us to take responsibility for ourselves.

We are broken in ways beyond our comprehension, but nevertheless are called by our Savior to be responsible stewards anyway.

That’s the starting point for this website & everything I have to say. You are probably here because you want to build a Christ-centered home: to have a healthy, Christ-honoring marriage, to see your children love the LORD with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength, to extend His kingdom through your family. But before we can go there, we have to understand this: we don’t have a chance of creating Christ-centered homes unless we learn how to be Christ-centered, healthy individuals first.

If you are going to be a good steward of yourself, then you need to understand yourself as best you can. You, and everyone in your home, are created by God in a “triune” sort of way (sound familiar?). You are made up of body, soul, and spirit.

Yes, I know there’s been an ongoing debate through the years about whether man is made up of two parts (body and soul) or three parts, as I’ve suggested. I’m not going to get into all that, for two reasons.

1) There are plenty of other, wonderful resources where you can find information on that debate.

2) I’m personally settled on the issue after years of study. I truly believe the scripture clearly teaches that God has made us with body, soul, and spirit (1 Thessalonians 5:23). So I’m going with that…

What do I mean by body, soul, and spirit?

The body is obvious, it’s the biological shell that houses us as we walk planet earth. It requires nutritious food, adequate rest, and sufficient exercise in order to do its job.

The soul is an intangible part of us that is comprised of mind (our ability to think), will (our ability to choose), and emotions (our ability to feel).

The spirit is also intangible and is the part of us that discerns, understands, and applies truly spiritual things. The spirit of the Christian communes directly with God, and grows into Christ-likeness over time through the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:14, 1 Corinthians 6:11).

It sounds neat and tidy the way I’ve just explained it, but it’s not. The three parts of man are woven together in intricate ways that will forever remain a mystery to us. But for our purposes it is helpful to recognize these three parts of who we are. Each of them is an area of our own lives over which God has made us stewards. In other words, we are to rightly manage and care for every part of who God has made us to be – body, soul, and spirit.

Personally, I have traveled far too long on the road of life without a balanced and right awareness of my responsibility in each of those areas. At any given time, I have excelled in maintaining one, or in good seasons possibly two of them, and ignored the other(s).

As God has shown me the importance of being healthy in all three areas, He’s brought a deep conviction to my heart, and has convinced me that I need to pass those convictions on to others who are willing to learn, listen, and apply them to their own lives. My prayer is that you might be one of them.

I said all that to say this…

It won’t take you long to notice that in every area of this website, the theme of good stewardship in all 3 of those areas is emphasized repeatedly. To use a modern phrase, I’m addressing the health of the Christian home and family in a “holistic” way, which should be nothing new, since it’s how God has always seen us and dealt with us. In approaching your life and home in this way, I’m encouraging you to take Paul’s words seriously when he says, “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” (1 Corinthians 10:31).

In the pages of this website, I cover areas that seem natural for a website focusing on the Christian home and family – marriage, parenting, communication, etc. But I will also write on things that may not seem to fit that topic as naturally – nutrition, exercise, education, etc.

The reason?

God intends our lives to be integrated, not segmented or compartmentalized, and the stewardship of our lives needs to be carried out in light of that truth.

So, as we wrap up this post, prayerfully and seriously consider:

You are body – physical, with physical needs.
You are soul – emotional, mental, willful, all which have their particular needs.
You are spirit – able to relate to God in deep, meaningful relationship. Your spirit has its distinct needs as well.
And here’s the kicker – you are RESPONSIBLE before God to steward each of those areas well.