A little over two years ago, I took you on a journey with me as I wrote my book, “The Sovereignty of God.” I wrote many posts on the subject of God’s sovereignty, and as I wrote the book, I shared excerpts from it with you. The act of sharing my goals with you on Facebook helped me continue to make progress on my book each week.
I also started a small private Facebook group of accountability partners. I checked in once a week to give them the progress I made that week on writing my book. All these things helped me complete and publish my book in a timely manner.
Lately, you may have noticed quite a few posts on stewardship. This is a subject I have been thinking a lot about, and as I talk to other people, I have found that many have the same questions I have. So, I have decided to write a book on Personal Stewardship. Consider this post as my “stake in the ground” moment where I take on the accountability to complete this goal.
Though I have done a lot of personal study on stewardship, I now begin the process of gathering my resources and organizing my thoughts into a cohesive, organized plan. That, and the actual writing of the chapters will take some time to accomplish. The editing and revision process alone can take weeks, or months, to complete.
That said, I anticipate my book on stewardship to publish sometime in the Summer or Fall of 2025. With this public announcement, the clock officially starts ticking for me. Don’t be surprised to see more posts dealing with various aspects of our stewardship to God from me on Facebook.
In this post, I will share where I am and what I think I will be focusing on in the book, but I have learned that writing often alters the direction I planned in the beginning. So, take anything I say with a grain of salt. Expect changes and revisions to what I plan on including in the book as I dive deeper into the work.
So far, this is what I am planning for the book. The working title and subtitle is:
Personal Stewardship
Choosing Your Ministry That Glorifies God
Some things I want to tackle are:
What is biblical stewardship?
How do I choose a stewardship?
How do I know the stewardship I choose is one that God wants me to engage in?
We will be tackling issues of personal services, or ministries, we can engage in to bring glory to God, as well as group services (private or through our church). What attitude should I have when others do not “support” my ministry, and what attitude should I have toward others who engage in a ministry I may not want to take part in?
We will spend a lot of time examining our motives behind the stewardship we choose to engage in to see if the reasons we want to participate in a stewardship to God is for our glory or for His glory.
When we consider how to serve God while on earth, there are so many ways to do it. God has given each of us different talents, skills, and even different interests. What happens when our desire to serve God in a specific way does not align with our ability to carry out that service? These are the things we will openly address in the book.
We will talk about the danger of comparing ourselves to others when it comes to the service we choose to render to God. We will spend a lot of time in the parables of Jesus that speaks to stewardship and we will break those down as we get a glimpse of what our King wants us to learn about stewardship.
We will look at examples of good and bad stewards in Scripture and learn from their experiences. Ultimately, we all want to find the act of service we can engage in that lays our offering at the feet of King Jesus when we meet Him face to face on that Day.
Choosing how we serve God can be a daunting task for many people as we guess and second guess our choices and then look at all the amazing things others seem to be doing for the Lord. In this book, I hope we can look at stewardship through a practical lens that encourages us, excites us, and opens our minds to the many ways we can work to bring glory to our King as we live for Him upon this earth.
Thank you for being my accountability partner for yet another book. I know I have a lot of work ahead of me, and I am excited to share my progress with you along the way. My biggest request from you is to pray for wisdom on my behalf as I start this project, and to pray that whatever happens, my efforts bring glory to God.
There is a relationship between belief and action.
One aspect of being lukewarm is believing but not acting on that belief.
“I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot!
So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.” (Revelation 3:15-16 ESV).
Jesus links hot, cold, and lukewarm Christians to what He knows about their works.
If we believe in Jesus as Lord and King, let’s take action on that belief and live like we believe it.
I’m in the book of Daniel in my daily Bible reading. In chapter 9, we see Daniel interceding for the people, appealing to God’s glory to listen to his plea:
“Now therefore, O our God, listen to the prayer of your servant and to his pleas for mercy, and for your own sake, O Lord, make your face to shine upon your sanctuary, which is desolate.” (Daniel 9:17 ESV).
We see Moses doing something similar as he intercedes for the people:
“Why should the Egyptians say, ‘With evil intent did he bring them out, to kill them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from your burning anger and relent from this disaster against your people.
Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you swore by your own self, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your offspring, and they shall inherit it forever.’”” (Exodus 32:12-13 ESV).
We cannot point to our goodness as a basis for seeking God’s forgiveness. Sometimes, all the time in reality, all we have to appeal to is God’s goodness and His mercy.
This is what Daniel and Moses appealed to. The people were evil and had no redeeming value. It was only in God’s unwavering goodness, mercy, and grace we can appeal to His intercession on our behalf.
In both cases with Daniel and Moses, God relented from what sin demanded because He extended goodness to His people for His great love and His name’s sake as a compassionate and forgiving God.
When we bring our broken, sin-stained heart to God, let us appeal to His mercy and His great propensity to extend grace rather than attempt to build a futile case on why we are worthy of His forgiveness.
I am in the book of Hosea in my daily Bible reading. Having done a deep study on the sovereignty of God, and continuing to learn about God’s sovereignty, I see evidence of His sovereignty everywhere in the Scriptures. In chapter 10 of Hosea, it comes through in a few words that may be easy for us to gloss over.
Hosea is a book of spiritual adultery where God presents himself as a jilted lover, faithful to his adulterous wife Israel but not tolerating her continuing to go after other lovers, false gods and nations in whom she trusts.
While pleading for Israel to stop whoring after other lovers and return to Him, the One who has been faithful to her for all her life, God does say this:
“When I please, I will discipline them, and nations shall be gathered against them when they are bound up for their double iniquity.” (Hosea 10:10 ESV).
“When I please”
This is the language of sovereignty. God said he would act when He pleases. He would choose the time, and He would not be pushed into acting before He wanted to act.
Sometimes, we are tempted to forget God’s sovereignty. We either insist that He act on our timetable or we want Him to sit in the corner while we continue to do what we know is wrong.
Peter says in the last days, people will scoff and say that God will not act while they engage in their wickedness against Him:
“They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” (2 Peter 3:4 ESV).
In Job 35, Job writes that men will call out to God,
“There they cry out, but he does not answer, because of the pride of evil men.” (Job 35:12 ESV).
We cannot call out to God when it is convenient to us and ignore Him and His will for us, nor can we expect Him to sit idly by while we continue to sin against Him with impunity.
God is sovereign and will act when He pleases. It is not, nor ever has been, up to us when God acts. God tells us what He wishes. He expects us to be His faithful bride. Only a fool will continue to ignore the sovereign God who acts when He pleases.