Following In The Theme Of Accountable Stewardship.…..

I had the distinct honor of being this month’s Beulah Baptist Church (LAMP) Meditation speaker ‚Leaders And Members in Prayer.
It was encouraging to see our political leaders take the time to attend and acknowledge God as their source.
We may sometimes disagree on policy but what all of us agree on is that Jesus Christ is Lord and we need him in whatever we do.
Thanks to County Executive Marc Malinaro, Poughkeepsie Mayor Rob Rolison, County and city Legislators , Police Chief Ron Knapp , Judges and other leaders who attended. Our Pastor was a little under the weather this morning but we continue to pray God’s cover over him.

MEDITATION

They told me I have 5 min­utes to do this med­i­ta­tion this morn­ing and in obe­di­ence I intend to stick with the direc­tives I was giv­en. Nevertheless I am guid­ed by my pas­tor who always said.…If you help me with this lit­tle ser­mon I will be done soon , if not, I will have to go over it again.

There are sev­er­al vari­a­tions to the def­i­n­i­tion for the word ” STEWARD”. However every vari­a­tions of the def­i­n­i­tions of stew­ard has a com­mon thread. A stew­ard is one whose job it is to look after or take care of an event, to orga­nize, or to be care-tak­er of a prop­er­ty , on behalf of another .

THE OWNER:

I want to talk to you briefly this morn­ing about “ACCOUNTABLE STEWARDSHIP” The Beulah Church Theme for this year is COMMITTED and ACCOUNTABLE STEWARDS. Let me first thank my Pastor whose lead­er­ship made it pos­si­ble for opin­ion­at­ed mem­bers of his flock ‚like myself to speak to you this morn­ing. I thank him for the oppor­tu­ni­ty. I thank you all for com­ing here this morn­ing so we may fel­low­ship and wor­ship togeth­er as well. I want to make my brief address about how we treat this Earth we are giv­en stew­ard­ship of . As well as how we treat each oth­er in line with this year’s theme.

It’s impor­tant that before we talk about “STEWARDSHIP” we estab­lish that before stew­ard­ship there was “OWNERSHIP”.

This plan­et on which we live was cre­at­ed by God, for God.
I know some of you are now look­ing at me fun­ny right?
What is he talk­ing about ?
I know God made this earth for me, he made it for all of us !!!

Really ?

Let’s see what the word of God have to say about that. Colossians 1:16 ?.…..For by Him all things were cre­at­ed, both in the heav­ens and on earth, vis­i­ble and invis­i­ble, whether thrones or domin­ions or rulers or author­i­ties– all things have been cre­at­ed through Him and for Him.

HOW DID HE DO IT ?

Psalm 24−−1−2 ( KJV) The earth is the Lord’s, and the full­ness there­of; the world, and they that dwell there­in. Yes he own us too.…

2 For he hath found­ed it upon the seas, and estab­lished it upon the floods.

Genesis 1:3 ? Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. 4 “God saw that the light was good; and God sep­a­rat­ed the light from the darkness.

Psalm 33:6 By the word of the LORD the heav­ens were made, their star­ry host by the breath of his mouth.

Hebrews 11:3 By faith we under­stand that the uni­verse was formed at God’s com­mand, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.

Let me ask you this, and I mean it in the most respect­ful way , if you don’t believe in my God, and you real­ly don’t have to because he gave us free will. Can your God do any of those thinks I just spoke about. Can your God cre­ate galax­ies out of noth­ing? Can your God tell the storms to “be still” and the roar­ing winds bow in obedience?
That’s the great­ness of the God I wor­ship. That’s what excites me when I talk about him. My God…
A very famous Pastor teach­es that John is referred to as the dis­ci­ple that Jesus loved, but those claims are only to be found.….……
You guessed it, only in the book of John.

The way mankind has behaved since the begin­ning of time you would think we owned the earth right?

The whole pur­pose of my lit­tle talk here this morn­ing is to expound on the good­ness and gra­cious­ness of God. I say this despite my per­son­al pain and hurt, as most of you are aware I car­ry a deep hurt after our son Kodi went home to be with the lord. Nevertheless when we con­sid­er God’s gra­cious­ness and love for us, every­thing pales under the light of his grace.

◄ John 3:16 ►For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begot­ten Son, that whomev­er believes in Him shall not per­ish, but have eter­nal life.

You know I was taught this scrip­ture since I was in Kindergarten and cor­rect­ly so . But no one both­ered to teach me that the world we live in was not made for me to abuse.

No one told me that it was­n’t pru­dent to drill in every place for oil because it does irrepara­ble dam­age to the del­i­cate eco-system.

No one told me it was­n’t real­ly mine so I should take care not to pol­lute our drink­ing water for profit.

No one both­ered to teach me only to kill what I need­ed to eat . That I had no right to sac­ri­fice the earth­’s crea­tures on the altar of sports , ren­der­ing many species extinct with reck­less aban­don and cyn­i­cal disregard.

No one both­ered to teach me it real­ly is not yours , take good care of it you are only a steward.

How many of you would build a great big man­sion fill it with beau­ti­ful fur­nish­ings, expen­sive and price­less Artwork. Make arrange­ment for the finest foods and the best wines to be deliv­ered in abun­dance, then give the house to your friends rent free? You don’t return to both­er your friends , no nit-pick­ing all you ask is that they take care of it. Well my ques­tion is rhetor­i­cal because I don’t believe any of you would do it and nei­ther would I .

But God did !!!

But since God loves us so much he did what we would­n’t do and that was just the begin­ning because even after giv­ing us all of the good­ness and abun­dance of the earth free of charge we turned our back on him in rebel­lion. And so you say, that was­n’t me that was Adam and Eve, I’m just being held account­able for their sins.

Well…

When was the last time you fed the hungy?

When was the last time you vis­it­ed the sick?

When was the last time you cared for the widowed?

If you fail at these sim­ple require­ments Jesus asked of us , how can you in good con­science say you are a Christian? If we fail to com­ply with these sim­ple requests how can we say these sins were Adam and Eve’s when you open­ly defy God, and rebel against his commands.

So God cre­at­ed this won­der­ful plan­et for him­self yet he loves us so much that he made us stew­ard over it. On that basis we have a respon­si­bil­i­ty to treat it well and prob­a­bly more impor­tant­ly treat each oth­er well . .….….….…..

I get goose bumps when I think about this , it is absolute­ly one of my favorite things to talk about with my saved broth­ers and sisters.

I par­tic­u­lar­ly delight in talk­ing to the unsaved about the big­ness and great­ness of God , yet he takes time to be con­cerned about me.

Jeremiah 1:5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew[a] you, before you were born I set you apart . I appoint­ed you as a prophet to the nations.”

HOW AWESOME IS THAT ?

Good took the time to set me apart, to set you apart.

There nev­er was any­one like you since the begin­ning of time and there nev­er will be anoth­er you. He took the time to form me in my moth­er’s womb to raise me up to bring me through all my tribu­la­tion and tri­als to stand tall to pro­nounce his name for his Glory so that all shall know that he is God.

Luke 12:7 “Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all num­bered. Do not fear; you are more valu­able than many spar­rows. One of the trend­ing nar­ra­tive these days is that God Almighty must be a nar­cis­sis­tic God because he wants us to give him all the praise, all the glo­ry .Of course any untrue nar­ra­tive that goes unchecked becomes false truths if left long enough.….

God wants us to give him all the glo­ry , but there is a very valid rea­son for it. 2 Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slow­ness, but is patient toward you, not wish­ing for any to per­ish but for all to come to repentance.

When God bless­es our lives he wants us to give him the glo­ry not because he is an inse­cure God. No, it’s not because he is a nar­cis­sis­tic God who sits and wait for adulation.

Psalm 100:3 Know that the LORD Himself is God; It is He who has made us, and not we our­selves; We are His peo­ple and the sheep of His pasture.

God wants us to tell oth­ers of the good works he has wrought in us so that they too may come to see him as their source. So that they too may be saved . God wants all of us , his chil­dren to be saved.….…… safe with him.

You are in the desert, your throat is parched and dry from the thirst you stum­ble and gasp for air . Are your eyes deceiv­ing you, is that an Oasis on the hori­zon, or is it a mirage? Are your eyes play­ing tricks on you again? After all you have seen what you thought was an Oasis in the dis­tance before, as you peered out of your glazed eyes. Only to find out your un-dilat­ed eyes were play­ing tricks on you. , . Nevertheless you stum­ble on, you fall, you get up and you drag your­self along until final­ly. Trees.… …wait could that be .….

Water? …

Oh yes it’s water , you fall face down in it , you drink to your heart’s con­tent. You roll around in it, you fill your water bot­tle , you are refreshed ..
You con­tin­ue on your way with renewed strength.
You come upon a stranger he is thirsty and exhaust­ed like you were.
You pull out your water bot­tle you give him swigs of the life giv­ing water.
You keep some water for your­self and you point him to the source .
You give them a swig but there is a source.

It’s not you .

He is .

Your bot­tle will run emp­ty so you give what you can, but you direct him to the un-end­ing source. The source nev­er los­es its life-giv­ing fresh­ness, it nev­er gets brackish.

The source nev­er runs out . The source is Jesus Christ the Oasis in the desert .… Our God does not need our adu­la­tion nor our recog­ni­tion, he is God all by himself .

We give him the Glory so oth­ers may come to know him as their lord and savior.

So they too may expe­ri­ence his goodness.

So they too can under­stand the sanc­ti­ty of being good stewards.

After all if we are all good stew­ards God’s house is in good shape.

Thank you …