stewardship on Weakness

As we gather on your good earth, before the bounty of your Word and Table, and the majesty of your holy presence, We remember and repent Forgive us, Abiding One, We keep you at a distance We defy you...

Ancient Lens What’s the historical context? Background Structure This Psalm of David is unique. “It is the only hymn in the Old Testament composed completely as a direct address to God.” [1] It e...

Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.

Holy and merciful God, in your presence we confess our sinfulness, our shortcomings, and our offenses against you. You alone know how often we have sinned in wandering from your ways, in wasting your ...

Gracious God, we fail to give to others, when you have so generously given to us. We look for our maximum benefit and minimum sacrifice. We have forgotten where every good gift comes from – you. Holy ...

I have held many things in my hands and I have lost them all; but whatever I have placed in God's hands, that I still possess.

O Giver of every good and perfect gift, we confess that we are poor stewards of your bounty. You give us time, but we waste it. You give us life, but we use it to glorify ourselves. You give us wealth...

Generous God our Father – who gives us all good gifts: Gifts of life, love and, relationships; gifts of work and leisure, effort and rest; and, most of all, gifts of Your Son and our salvation, yo...

If our goods are not available to the community, they are stolen goods.

Almighty God, you bless us so richly. You renew us and give us new life. You equip us with the gifts of your Spirit. You give us an amazing calling to follow you each day. But we fail to use the gifts...

One Sunday morning, after delivering a sermon, a preacher was asked by a friend how it was received by the congregation. The sermon focused on the Christian responsibility of the wealthy to help the p...

It’s a cultural disability in America that we worship pleasure, leisure, and affluence. I think the church is doubly damned when they use Jesus as a vehicle for achieving all of that. Like, if you giv...

Money is a good servant but a bad master.

Introduction Our Gospel reading for today, the well-known “Parable of the Talents,” is one of a series of Jesus’ teachings in the Gospel of Matthew that focuses on what Davies and Allison rightly lab...

The unjust steward who, hearing he is going to be fired, doctors his master’s accounts to secure another job, is commended precisely because he acted. The point does not concern morality but apathy. H...

Gracious God, you are the giver of every good and perfect gift. You give us our talents, our freedom, and our financial resources. We struggle to give back to you from these gifts. We often worry that...

Ruler of all, we live each day as if we’ll live forever, yet none of us know how long we have. We are sorry for squandering our days, our resources, and our abilities. Please renew our sense of urgenc...

If you know how to spend less than you get, you have the philosopher's stone.

He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.

Medieval Dominican friar Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), in his commentary on the Lord’s Prayer, specifically the fourth petition (“give us this day our daily bread”), points out several ways that our own...

Those who give much without sacrifice are reckoned as having given little.

It is just as much a matter of discipline for a church member practically to deny his stewardship as to deny the divinity of Christ.

Almighty God of creation, please forgive us for the times when we’ve squandered the gifts you’ve given us. You give so freely, so abundantly, that we sometimes take your gifts for granted. For the tim...

Loving God, you show us grace and mercy, again and again and again. You shower gifts on us that we could never earn, and you are slow to punish us when we most deserve it. All too often, we forget to ...

Let us pray. Almighty, powerful, creator God So often we think we know best. We confess to you our sin alongside the sin of all humanity. We have tried to master creation rather than care for it. We ...

If silver and gold are things evil in themselves, then those who keep away from them deserve to be praised. But if they are good creatures of God, which we can use both for the needs of our neighbor a...

The grace of God overflows for us through Christ Jesus, who came into the world to save sinners. We therefore, confess, holy and merciful God, our failure to be what you created us to be. You alone kn...

In his book on the subject, Philip Yancey describes the tension he himself deals with as a Christian related to money: Many Christians have one issue that haunts them and never falls silent: for som...

I am convinced that the scourge of our scientific and technological age is depersonalization. There is a heartbeat pulsating at the center of the universe, giving life and meaning to everything, but o...

In the sport of cycling, one of the most important things necessary to be successful in a race is the ability to manage the timing of when “to burn a match.” This is a phrase that all bike racers know...