"God owns Everything!" – Part I

“…all the world is mine and everything in it.” – Psalm 50:12 (NLT)

Your life experiences influence the way you think – from childhood you’ve been programmed by one thing or another, one person or another and altogether these have marked and continue to mark your thinking and ultimately your beliefs about many things, including how you value money and other material possessions. 

Do you know that there are over 2000 verses in the Bible that, directly and indirectly, deal with money, finances, and possessions? The book of Proverbs alone is full of financial wisdom. This tells you that, how you view and treat with these things is important to God. He cares so much about it that He has given instructive lessons, throughout the Bible. 

One of the very first things you learn is that God owns everything since He created everything (Genesis 1:1) and if He created it, then He owns it.

“The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it. The world and all its people belong to him. For he laid the earth’s foundation on the seas and built it on the ocean depths.” – Psalm 24”1-2 (NLT)

Here, it’s plain to see, creation establishes ownership: you belong to God along with everything you think is yours. Like Adam and Eve, you were created by God and placed in a garden that He also created, and, just as they left the Garden with nothing, so too you will have to leave behind, in this garden, everything you think you own.

“People come into the world with nothing. And when they die, they leave with nothing.” – Ecclesiastes 5:15a (ERV) (see also 1 Timothy 6:7) 

It is sometimes hard to come to grips with this, especially if you have worked hard to earn and are successful. But the truth is that even if you’ve worked hard for everything – house, land, car, boat, furniture – you still have to leave it all behind.

“They might work hard to get things, but they cannot take anything with them when they die.” – Ecclesiastes 5:15b

Everything belongs to God!

Understand that whether or not you have worked your fingers to the bone to acquire stuff, it is God who has given you that power and ability. You don’t have to believe me, you can read it for yourself in Deuteronomy 8:17-18.

“Don’t ever say to yourself, ‘I got all this wealth by my own power and ability.’ Remember the Lord your God is the one who gives you power to do these things. He does this because he wants to keep the agreement that he made with your ancestors, as he is doing today!” (ERV)

There is still another problem and it is a worldwide epidemic that afflicts every single human being – selfishness. Selfishness is a tricky affliction that can hide itself making you think that you don’t suffer from it. Other people certainly, but never you, after all, you give money to the poor and to orphans and donation sheets. 

Selfishness is in every financial decision that you make. You base your financial decisions on what’s best for you in your situation; even the money you donate so “freely” to charity is selfishly motivated because your giving solely depends on how you feel. You give because it makes you feel good, you feel that you look good or both – it’s all about you. When your thoughts are set on “me” and “I” that is selfishness. 

Right now, your view about what you have is all about you. You do not truly realize that your entire existence depends upon God. He is the owner of everything, not you. You are not the owner and you have to let go of ownership. When you let go of ownership that is when you enter into genuine financial freedom, that’s when you begin to truly believe that God is Jehovah Jireh, your provider, the supplier of all your needs. 

However, to believe this requires a different way of thinking, a re-programming of your thought process, from thinking like the owner to thinking like the steward of someone else’s possessions. But that is who you are: a steward who manages someone else’s property, that someone else being God.

To change from thinking like the owner to manager will take some doing but it is not impossible and for you to truly enjoy what you have, you must do it. And if you are a steward who does well at managing you’ll be given more to manage and more to enjoy (see Luke 16:10 and 1 Timothy 6:17).

Understand that being the steward and not the owner does not mean that you’re destined for the poor house, it simply means that you are giving up control of ownership and it certainly does not mean that you will no longer enjoy life, actually you will enjoy life more because true enjoyment comes from God for those who do the will of God, it is a gift (see Ecclesiastes 2:24-25) – there’s no price tag on enjoyment. You get the privilege as you learn to manage

When you come to grips with “God owns Everything!” and live as God’s faithful steward, God will always give you extra and you’ll begin to truly live the life of enjoyment and abundance that Jesus Christ came to give.

“I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance (to the full, till it overflows).” – John 10:10 (AMPC)

Amen†

"God owns Everything!" – Part I    Shelley Johnson 21-Nov-2016