Stewardship, Ministry and Life

Stolen!

It was quite a shock when I looked into the box where we keep the MCPI projector and to realize that it was missing.   We were just setting up for our team training day–and it was gone.  It was quite a blow and my heart was very disturbed and heavy as I wrestled with the fact that such a valuable and vital piece of equipment had been stolen.  As I lead the opening devotional time I prayed and thanked the Lord for what had happened.  It was truly out of obedience and not because I felt like it.

We went on and had a very productive day as we learned and planned and prayed together.  That evening as I was going to sleep I asked the Lord what was the reason for this trial?  We are a small start-up organization just trying to get our feet on the ground.  Or as one of my colleagues says, “We are just learning to crawl.”  And then it was as if the Lord said to me almost audibly, “This ministry is mine, not yours.”  And suddenly, it hit me that The Multi-Church Pastor Institute  was “my” baby, it was “my” ministry and not God’s.  I was holding on to this new thing, this new ministry, too tightly.  I had too much of me invested in how this ministry was growing.  And so God through this painful event had to pry my fingers off of it so that He could be fully in control and not me.

Life is about stewardship–not ownership!

As I related this incident to my accountability partner he shared with me that God had been teaching him that “Life is about stewardship–not ownership!”  How true, and yet how often we forget this basic truth:  “What do you have that you did not receive?” (1 Corinthians 4:7)  Whether talents and abilities or tangible assets we are to be stewards for the One who gave them to us and allow Him to be in control of them all.

As the MCPI grows and develops, I want this to be a core value: we are stewards of this ministry, not owners.  I close with these words from the Robin Mark song, Jesus, All For Jesus:

Jesus, all for Jesus,
All I am and have and ever hope to be.
Jesus, all for Jesus,
All I am and have and ever hope to be.

All of my ambitions, hopes and plans
I surrender these into Your hands.
All of my ambitions, hopes and plans
I surrender these into Your hands.

For it’s only in Your will that I am free,
For it’s only in Your will that I am free,
Jesus, all for Jesus,
All I am and have and ever hope to be.