Stewardship Of The Profession Quotes

God is not glorified when we keep for ourselves (no matter how thankfully) what we ought to be using to alleviate the misery of unevangelized, uneducated, unmedicated, and unfed millions. The evidence that many professing Christians have been deceived by this doctrine is how little they give and how much they own. God has prospered them. And by an almost irresistible law of consumer culture (baptized by a doctrine of health, wealth, and prosperity) they have bought bigger (and more) houses, newer (and more) cars, fancier (and more) clothes, better (and more) meat, and all manner of trinkets and gadgets and containers and devices and equipment to make life more fun. They will object: Does not the Old Testament promise that God will prosper his people? Indeed! God increases our yield, so that by giving we can prove our yield is not our god. God does not prosper a man's business so that he can move from a Ford to a Cadillac. God prospers a business so that 17,000 unreached people can be reached with the gospel. He prospers the business so that 12 percent of the world's population can move a step back from the precipice of starvation.

The instructive admonitions, “give an account of thy stewardship,“—“occupy till I come;” are forgotten. Thus the generous and wakeful spirit of Christian Benevolence, seeking and finding every where occasions for its exercise, is exploded, and a system of decent selfishness is avowedly established in its stead; a system scarcely more to be abjured for its impiety, than to be abhorred for its cold insensibility to the opportunities of diffusing happiness.

Many have the idea that once someone has made a profession of faith, that is all it is—a profession of faith. But God says we come to know Him so we can obey Him and do what He has given us to do. Our response to God determines how God responds to us—with the same measure.

Someone recently called me from another part of the world and said, “I want you to know about someone who professed faith in Christ. It was after reading your little booklet entitled, God So Loved the World. We give that booklet out in the U.S. to thousands of people. We give it out door-to-door when visiting people.” I remember writing and rewriting that little booklet, taking all manner of pains trying to get the simple gospel message across clearly. That was a very difficult thing to do, presenting it in a way to people so it could be printed and be given out, and translated into different languages. Then someone called and said, “I got saved because of that.” I know others have also. Was that a wise investment, to work on that, to print it, and to put it into people’s hands? Yes! We are going to see people in heaven because of that.

The goal in life is not simply to profess faith in Christ; the goal is to place your faith in Christ in order to become a true follower of the Lord Jesus Christ.