Stewardship might be a topic many would rather not tackle, but everyone needs to because we all need Jesus as Lord of every area of our life. Stewardship deals with our time, talent, treasure, and testimony. It begins with an understanding of who is to be our first love.
We discover in Matthew 22:37, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” This command was initially recorded in Deuteronomy 6:5. It’s repeated twice daily by faithful Jews. It encapsulates the idea of total devotion to God and includes the duty to obey the rest of God’s commandments.
To “love the Lord your God with all your heart,” “soul,” and “mind” is not a command requiring rigid compartments of who you are as a person but rather together refer to the whole person. Therefore, we are called to love God with all that we are and have. Another way to say this is that God is our first love.
Jesus seeks total devotion from His disciples. The eighteenth-century pastor, theologian, and evangelist John Wesley described this as Christian perfection. He wrote, “What then is the perfection of which man is capable while he dwells in a corruptible body?… It is the loving of the Lord his God will all his heart, and with all his soul, and will all his mind. This is the sum of Christian perfection: it is all comprised in one word, Love” (Wesley in his sermon “On Perfection”). Love for our neighbor is the practical outworking of love for God.
Don’t get hung up on the word “perfection.” It’s not that we love perfectly as much as that it’s receiving God’s love, and loving Him genuinely is essential to our being sanctified (becoming more and more like Christ in His love, character, purpose, and priorities). When we have God as the first love in our lives, led by His Spirit, it sets us on the right trajectory to live in alignment with His will for us. Such a life glorifies God, blesses us, and benefits others. What we put first in life matters. If we choose to put God first in our living and giving, we will live fuller lives, touch more lives, and reach a greater number of people with the love and message of Jesus Christ.
Let me give an example. From time to time, I will have a married couple come to see me in the hope of gaining some insight into how to improve their marriage. Most of the time, it’s apparent that they want me to give them a thing to do (i.e., go on a date night) or some magical pill. However, a flourishing marriage takes intentional focus and actual work, but it begins with a growing relationship with the Lord. I can tell this is not what a couple expects when I ask, “How is the condition of your soul?” or, “How is your relationship with God?” and in return, I get a perplexed look.
Remember what I wrote earlier, “Love for our neighbor is the practical outworking of love for God.” Our spouse is not different than any other “neighbor” (“neighbor” meaning all others). If we are to love our spouse, we must first receive God’s love and love Him back. In fact, we must love God above all else. Only then can we see the relationships in our lives flourish.
To grow in our love for someone takes significant time with that person. It requires an awareness of them and intentional prioritization of them. It’s no different with God. Amidst the hecticness of this world, it can be challenging to make loving God first an active priority. This is why we need His help to love Him in this way. Through admitting the depth of our weakness and dependency on His Spirit, we grow in Christ. Our growing in Christ leads us to an ever-growing love for God. The result is a solid base for living in alignment with God’s will for us; we can honor Him as good stewards of all He has entrusted to us for His glory. Soli Deo Gloria (Glory to God Alone)!