It Ain’t Ours. Really!

Psalm 89: 5-12
5 Let the heavens praise your wonders, O Lord,your faithfulness in the assembly of the holy ones!6 For who in the skies can be compared to the Lord?Who among the heavenly beings is like the Lord,7 a God greatly to be feared in the council of the holy ones,and awesome above all who are around him?8 O Lord God of hosts,who is mighty as you are, O Lord,with your faithfulness all around you?9 You rule the raging of the sea;when its waves rise, you still them.10 You crushed Rahab like a carcass;you scattered your enemies with your mighty arm.11 The heavens are yours; the earth also is yours;the world and all that is in it, you have founded them.12 The north and the south, you have created them;Tabor and Hermon joyously praise your name

Command those who are rich, to trust in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy. 1 Timothy 6:17

We are surrounded every day by things that don't belong to us, yet we call them ours. For instance, I refer to the truck I drive everyday as mine, when it really is the company’s truck. Others might call their office mine or the company car mine. But none of this equipment belongs to us really. It's ours to use, but not ours to keep. When our company gave it to us, we both knew what that meant. It was on loan not really our own.
This kind of circumstances is not unique to employer and employee relationships. That's the way it is with all of us and all of the things we call our own. When we speak of our family, our house, or our car, we are speaking of people and things God has allowed us to enjoy while we are here on earth, but they really belong to Him. Notice here the writer of this Psalm’s praise to God, The heavens are Yours, the earth also is Yours Psalm 89:11.
Understanding who really holds the title to all we possess should change our thinking. Just as we are aware that our company lets us use its equipment to help us do our work more efficiently, so also should we be aware that everything we have is given to us to serve the Lord.
Our time, talents, and possessions are all on loan from God so that we can do His work effectively.
It’s a challenge for all of us whom God has blessed with food for today and even a job to go too; because there is so many that don’t have these things right now. Yet the very people who have been placed in the powerful financial places can not get enough and want more, although they have abundance. It’s why Paul wrote, People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs 1 Timothy 6:9-10.
The very thing that we may think will be the downfall of our lives trouble can actually be the very thing we need to strengthen our lives by forcing us to cling to Jesus and Him alone. And the very things that we think will improve our lives may in fact ruin us. To the wealthy, self sufficient church in Laodicea that didn’t feel they needed Him, Jesus warned that from His point of view they were “wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked” (Revelation 3:17).
When we are consumed by the stacks of stuff going wrong in our world, we run the risk of missing the true treasures that are found in Christ alone. Do you think He might be trying to tell us something? I surely do.
In His Service,
Sandy Perry
10/18/08