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It Will All Be Yours

LUKE 4:1–7

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry.

The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.”

Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone.’”

The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And he said to him, “I will give you all their authority and splendor; it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. If you worship me, it will all be yours.”

CONSIDER THIS

The second temptation of Jesus in the wild ends with a punch line.

That punch line is ownership.

“It will all be yours.”

I imagine that Jesus heard a verse in his mind, from Israel’s prayer book, the book of Psalms, at that very moment. “The earth is the Lord’s,” said the writer of Psalm 24:1, “and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it.”

You’ve probably heard the idea that we are not owners in this life; rather, we are stewards of what God has entrusted to us. Like me, you’ve probably entertained it for many years, especially if you were taught about money from a biblical perspective. And many of us, including me, have agreed and aspired to this idea to one degree or another.

But Jesus didn’t have these degrees of latitude as an option, as we often think we do. Jesus knew that it was not all his, nor was it all his to own. He saw the world belonging to his Father and to imagine it belonging to himself, rather than to his Father, was repulsive.

What if we began, as followers of the way of Jesus, to resist language that proclaimed ultimate ownership—of our cars, our homes, our money, our work, or even our families—and chose the language of stewardship in its place? How would our minds and perspectives change slowly over time? How would we treat the resources now flowing through our hands, rather than finding their resting place in us?

When we face a financial difficulty, or a difficulty with something we perceive is in our possession (like a house or car), my wife leads us in the spirit of Psalm 24:1. She says something like, “Lord, your house needs a new roof. We look forward to how you will provide for that.” Every time she says something like that, I am reoriented from the trouble and made aware that the Father has a way, whether I perceive it or not.

The Milky Way, the stars, the skies, the mountains, the fields, and the relationships all around us belong to the Lord. For that reason, they are gifts given to us to share joy in, to freely distribute to others, and to delight in and pass on that delight to others.

It is good to know the Lord takes care of what he owns, that we don’t have to worry and fear. What the Father owns he provides for and shares with us. We don’t need to own the things the Father already does.

We don’t need it to all be ours. In fact, it’s better if it’s not, because often what comes, goes; what lives, dies; what starts, finishes. In those moments we can be thankful for what runs through our hands and hearts, but ultimately goes back to the Father.

THE PRAYER

Lord of the Wild, we choose to begin to use the language of stewardship going forward, acknowledging that you own all things and have our deepest concerns in mind. In Jesus’s name, amen.

THE QUESTIONS

How have you used the language of ownership in your own life, and how would shifting to the language of stewardship change your perspective on sharing what you have?

For the Awakening,
Dan Wilt

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WHAT IS THIS? Wake-Up Call is a daily encouragement to shake off the slumber of our busy lives and turn our eyes toward Jesus. Each morning our community gathers around a Scripture, a reflection, a prayer, and a few short questions, inviting us to reorient our lives around the love of Jesus that transforms our hearts, homes, churches, and cities.

Comments and Discussion

4 Responses

  1. The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. (Genesis 2: 15) Because of our fallen nature we tend to ignore this foundational truth, but God has never rescinded it. Stewardship of all creation was, and still is our primary task.

  2. Anything, everything in the physical realm, has an expiration date. All material items rust and corrode. Comes and goes.
    Matthew 6:19
    “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal,

    We are to be good stewards of all that God provides, but we are more apt to own and operate within the characteristics of the sinful nature of our flesh. More so than ever, I hear people move from doubt to concern, worry, and anxiety. Once anxiety is allowed in, it attacks. Then they call it my anxiety. They want to own it. It’s mine, and you can’t have it. Anxiety is a tributary of fear, and God did not give us a spirit of fear. (2 Timothy 1:7)
    Three years ago, my wife had a stroke. One carotid artery was 100% blocked and inoperable because of its position next to the brain. The other one was 35% block. Upon hearing this news from the ER doctor, fear rushed through me like a rising flood. Head spinning, I felt flush, weak, being attacked by anxiety. The room began to spin in my head. Then, through the self-control of the Fruit of the Spirit, I calmed my mind a recited Philippians 4:6-7, not verbatim, but from my heart. Because Jesus’ name is above all names, fear drained from me like an unclogged drain.
    Yes, God’s word is active and alive, and His word does what it says when we use it for His glory.
    Ultimately, everything is Jesus’s. Including us. Most just don’t know it.
    John 1:3
    3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.

  3. A prayer to the One who owns it all:

    Lord, help me be all Yours, willingly surrendered to and nonresistant to Your ownership of me and all that I see. Help me ever be directly led by the inner voice of Your Spirit while rejecting the control my desires. Help me be Your tide receiver always catching and riding the waves of Your Spirit.

  4. Amen 🙌🙏; thanks for sharing these comments: Proverbs 3:6, in all thy ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct thy path; Acts 12:5-12; good readings

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