Day 1
1 Timothy 6
6 But godliness with contentment is great gain. 7 For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. 8 But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. 9 Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. 10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs
If you are working for yourself a times comes when you feel you have done enough. If you are working to Please God you will do it until death . That is what steward does. A steward can only be able to do his job well if he accepts to be a slave of his master so that he will work for the master fully. Everything is done for the master’s good without worrying about himself.
It is the work of the master to worry about him, but for him, he lives to honour the master.
Then stewardship is living your life to do the best for the good of the master. It is accepting that you don’t own anything, that everything you possess, you yourself ,and whatever you hold ,is actually owned by God. Let us differentiate between ownership and possession. That there are things God has put under your possession but you should never start illegally transferring them to your ownership. You must always be conscious whatever it is you have belongs to God.
An example is parenting and we said that parenting, you need to understand that the children are in your possession at least for twenty years, but they are not your children. They are God’s children and so it means that as you deal with them you must be aware you are answerable to God to what you do. You know like when they are babies they can’t talk for themselves but you cannot claim to be a good steward and still ignore them.
Now, we are not in a couples’ conference, but when I go to attend a couples’ conference I keep reminding them that you pray very hard that God will give you a child, especially in Africa. In fact you count nine months after the wedding and you expect a child in Africa. But unfortunately we have one leg in African traditions, another leg in modern world.
So you find a lady who prayed desperately for a child, and she is a bank manager. As soon as she gives birth,she wants to go back to work.First of all she doesn’t go on leave until one day or two days, sometimes she is called out of the bank to go to hospital. Then after she comes out of hospital she doesn’t want to stay long. She says, things are going wrong in the branch. I want to go back. So some of them don’t even breastfeed. It is going to interfere with their careers..they argue .
Now, I ask, why did you ask God for a baby when you had no intention of affecting your career for the sake of the baby? You cannot get a baby and run your life like you never got a baby. The stewardship of a child calls for your professional life to get affected. And we can spend time on that. But stewardship means you are managing those children on behalf of God. To be a successful parent you must view your self as a steward answerable to God.
Just think about stewardship concept as opposed to prosperity gospel? Stewardship has its implication to the prosperity gospel. Prosperity gospel god owes you stewardship you owe him
Day 2
Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness
What stewardship as a source of contentment .Yet true godliness and contentment in itself assumes stewardship …. Now, there is great gain in godliness with contentment for we brought nothing into this world and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content.
Now, stewardship revolves around that verse. We have just mentioned the prosperity gospel, and now we are learning if you truly are a steward you will live a life of contentment. That the word of God is saying if you don’t have godliness, irrespective of the amount of possession you will have you will never gain contentment.
And I know that to be for a fact as I have friends who are stinking rich and as you are dealing with them and you realize the kind of dissatisfaction they are in. So I do know for a fact that the opposite is true. That without godliness you can never be contented. Haven’t you noticed, this yourself.It appears in my book The Secret of Contentment, that when families are poor they seem to be in love. As soon as they pass a certain level of income there is trouble.
In fact they say the longevity of marriage is directly proportional, to the amount of wealth you have. I am not suggesting you don’t pray for wealth, but I am just warning you in advance. That the richer you become, the harder it will be for your marriage to last. That’s a researched fact. So, the word of God is clear. So it should not be surprising us that you have difficulty. Without godliness no hope for you.
By the way it is getting worse when it is the wife who is bringing more money. The chance of your marriage lasting is a little worse. A friend of mine the other day lost his job, they are both professionals. You know, the first month he was not getting a job. He is qualified but the economy in Kenya was going through a difficult time. When I say the other day don’t take me seriously it may be many years ago. As you grow older the other day gets longer and longer. You know when you are ten years the other day may be only the last month. Now, you know, they are both born again, going to church, serious Christians. After one month of no job the wife said, please sort yourself out. He said, what do you mean? Even you, you can help me to look for a job. I have not refused any job. She repeated …I have just warned you, sort yourself out.
By the third or so month the housegirl was given instructions not to give him food. He comes home, he goes to the fridge, he discovers there is nothing, because food must be brought when the lady comes. And she serves everyone, the children and herself, the husband gets nothing. He asks, what is happening? Her reply food does not grow on trees. Start working.
He thought, he has been in prayer, he is fasting, he is asking God for intervention. But , as if it was a joke he came one day and found the house without people. They had moved. Since it was a rented house, she moved the family without telling him. So he came home after looking for a job only to find there was no house. And he has no idea where his family had been taken. But since to be fair to her she had warned him, he realized now he had better look for brothers who are willing to house him.
Day 3
Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.
But God has his ways. Remember we are saying, even bad things happen for good. He finally just found an international job, not even now a local one, but international.and he started working out of the country and he was earning several times the previous salary. By this time course now they are not communicating, the wife had cut off the communication. When the wife discovered that he is doing very well, now better than her, she started sending people to him that as she wants them back together. So I now came to the scene and he came to see me. How do you deal with the matter? Obviously to tell him to come back to the marriage he knows he is not a husband, he is only a worker. He is not seen in terms of a husband, he is seen in terms of money. So since he cannot guarantee that even this job,cannot be lost how does he come back. You know these are contracts, most of those international jobs are contracts. So if the contract ends he will again be thrown out. Isn’t it better to get used to staying on his own? I found it very difficult to know what to tell this person. I told him, he is married till death do us part, and forgiveness is not conditional. You really need to talk to your friend, you still need to come back together.
Their problem was prosperity gospel.Thy had lack of godliness. When you don’t have godliness rest assured money will not bring you contentment. And marriages especially have real problems with these new society.
And by the way it is not just women. Let’s not try to defame women. Men are the same. You realize your wife is not bringing much, then you meet another woman, who will bring more.In fact I heard the story the other day of a Christian brother in one of our churches.There is another lady who he met in the air .Doing a travelling job you always meet others in the airport. And sometimes you are in the airport for one hour, sometimes there is a delay two hours, and your wife will only drop you and move on. So friendship develops.This new woman was clear, I don’t need money. Just having a good time. You can stay with your wife. I don’t want a husband, I just want a friend. Although the single woman manager also wanted one child but not for the purposes of you looking after her. I will never claim your money, I have mine. My child is my child, not yours.You will never pay school fees.
This sounds very attractive. You can enjoy your wife,and also enjoy this one. your wife is always asking for this or others ,but this one is giving you instead. Are you getting the message? This brother feel for the trap.
Godliness with contentment is a great gain. And stewardship helps you to have godliness with contentment because you learn to accept what the master has given you. And so this verse is saying if you have food and clothing, that should satisfy you, isn’t it? Because with food you won’t die quickly, you are eating. You may have no money in your bank account but you are getting food, and at least you are not walking naked. That is enough.
Above that, whatever God gives you is called bonus. He has already provided. So I am saying stewardship is a source of contentment. You know, when you understand stewardship, number one, you value yourself the way God values you. You no longer value yourself according to quantity.
Day 4
Matthew 25
19 “After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. 20 The man who had received five bags of gold brought the other five. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with five bags of gold. See, I have gained five more.’21 “His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’22 “The man with two bags of gold also came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with two bags of gold; see, I have gained two more.’23 “His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’
Remember God is after faithfulness not after output. Output it is for God to manage. Yours is to do what He is asking you to do faithfully. So in that process you are able to value yourself better because you value yourself according to the way the master values you. And when you do that it brings you contentment. You know there are people who are having trouble because they are always comparing themselves with their brothers. In a family of eight I am the only one who is not making it they feel.I don’t have as much money as my brothers. Now, when you learn stewardship you understand your brothers what they have is something given by God for them to look after. If God has chosen to give you this much, you are not an adviser to God.
You know a lot of people want to serve the Lord but they are only looking for one position, one vacancy only, an advisor of God. Everybody wants to serve the Lord as his advisor. Unfortunately there is no vacancy. God is the one who tells us, He never needs an advisor. But that’s what you want to be. So when you see your brothers, your mother’s children doing better, you don’t think, haiya, these people are more blessed than me. Because you now discover what you have is not a sign of blessing, it is a sign of responsibility. The fact that you have more money than me doesn’t mean God has blessed you more than me, it means He has given you responsibility in that area and He may have given me a different responsibility. So can you see you start valuing yourself as you are, that if this is the area God wants me to be I am okay. So you are no longer, in that comparison issue.
Some people even think that if they were richer their family problems would decrease.. Now, you need to understand that when you start comparing yourself, the reason why you think the car is the solution is because you are thinking the people with cars are better. So you pray for a second car because your problems are because of one car. As long as you had one car, every morning you had to discuss in details how the day will go. But as soon as you have cars her program and your program don’t have to meet. So you no longer discuss in detail, your fellowship has been cut because of having two cars.
Day 5
Philippians 4
11 I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. 12 I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.
All I want you to see is to understand this idea, as a steward you learn to accept yourself and are happy with yourself irrespective of the externalities or the things you have once you learn stewardship. You distance yourself from your possessions. And my book, The Secret of Contentment, deals with this. You and your possessions are not the same. You are the one who possesses your possessions but not own. So you cannot be your possessions. You know these days you ask somebody, who are you? I am an engineer. You know, he is not answering my question, he is telling me what he does. So we have ceased to be human beings, we have now become human doings.So whenever you are asked who are you, say who are you? I am a pastor. Now, that’s not who you are, that is what you do. So, everybody has become a human doing.
One of our late psychiatrists Dr. Gatere, he is a Christian, he told us, people in Kenya are dying within three years of retirement for three reasons. Number one, he doesn’t know who he is, he thinks he is his job. And he is the managing director of a company. Now, once he is retired who is he? He doesn’t know who he is. So within no time he is totally confused.
Then we have this funny habit in Kenya of retiring in the village. You left the village as a young boy when you went to boarding high school. You come back, your agemates are all old in their sixties, and daily in the shopping centre. You come to the restaurant or bar near your place and, People are asking, who is that man? Where you came from everybody knew the MD of Vesco. I am the former? Former what? The way they treat you,you feel hurt because they don’t care, ,what title do you have? Nothing. The guy goes home wondering, who am I? Because he ceased to be a human being, he became a human doing.
Then he tells his wife how he was treated. The wife retired earlier to look after the coffee farm. He kept sending the money for the planting of the coffee. Then he says, now that I am here we are going to expand this farm. So we are going to plant more coffee in that area. The woman bursts into laughter because it is simply not done. They have already learnt from the agricultural officer you don’t put coffee in such an area. But you know he is the former managing director. So he expects he knows. You know the wife doesn’t want to quarrel, she says, don’t worry but before we do that when the agricultural officer comes talk to him on that subject.
Next time the agricultural officer is passing he finds him outside. He says, where is the owner of the home? Remember he does not know him, the wife is the one he knows. In his own home, he is being asked to say where the owner is. But I am the owner. No, I don’t mean you, the real owner. The real owner? The guy is fuming. So when the lady comes she says, aaah, this is my husband. Ooooh. I didn’t know him. I just wanted to see you. By the way my husband had something to say. So he goes to explain how he has now come home and they are going to expand. As soon as he mentions how they will expand the agricultural officer laughs exactly the way the way the wife laughed. He feels terrible.
If that continues for one year, the guy is dead, because he ceased to be a person, to be a human doing. So it is this stewardship that teaches you to value yourself because you know the work God gives you is not you. He values you as a person and whatever He gives you, whether it is one talent, two talents, or five talents, all of you He loves you equally. So somehow you start valuing yourself.
Day 6
James 1
9 Believers in humble circumstances ought to take pride in their high position. 10 But the rich should take pride in their humiliation—since they will pass away like a wild flower
You can be in a group of very rich people, richer than you but it doesn’t bother you because you don’t see them as more blessed, you see them as having responsibility to manage money, steward of money. You, you are a steward of something different. Both of you are in the vineyard of the Lord, isn’t it? So it doesn’t intimidate you.
You don’t feel inferior because you no longer look at it as somebody more blessed, you look at it as somebody with different set of responsibility. And you know I have experienced that because some other time I was called by a group of rich people to give them a talk in 5 star hotel. It is one of the best hotels. So it is an evening meeting, rich people with their wives want a dinner talk. So I am supposed to give them a talk. One of the ladies is born again, that’s why she suggested my name. So we are sitting in the high table, they are talking, and we starting listening to them. One wife asks the other, where did you go for shopping this year? Ooh, I was in Paris but you know this summer was not good. She said, but you know you should have come to New York. When you realized you might not haven’t taken your wife to Mombasa, you feel intimidated. And remember after the dinner you are going to give these people a talk. Just before I talked they started talking about this property they bought together , that now as a group they have now bought one of the highrise buildings in the city of Nairobi and there is a penthouse. So our dear madams, now whenever you do shopping in town, don’t be in a hurry to leave town. Just park the car, go to the top and you can have drinks. It is already provided.
How will you talk to them after that? You are not in their league. When you are asked to talk you realize clearly you are out of your league . Then you realize the reason they called me is because they don’t have contentment, and God has given me contentment. That’s why He has opened opportunity for me. So when I talk my legs are not having fellowship because I am not intimidated. Are you getting the point?
I can tell you if you truly meditate on the meaning of becoming a steward, where you are not the owner, so whatever you have is not your responsibility you can never be intimidated.. If you have little you are not to blame, you have much you are not to credit yourself, your job is to be faithful in doing what God has asked you to do. That way you will learn to value yourself better and you will be satisfied at every level. You have much, you are happy, you have less you are still happy. Are you getting the secret of contentment?
So it is my prayer that this will help. It has really helped me as God has opened doors for me in every area. That at one moment I can be preaching in Mathare. Mathare is a slum, and there you can’t speak in English. I speak in Swahili. My Swahili is not very good, but I preach. And you hear somebody saying, you know we wanted to invite you but we thought you don’t go to such places. No. I have something God wants me to give away, and I can say it in English and I can say it in Swahili. I don’t have a class. I don’t belong to a class, I belong to Christ.
I can be at peace with people in Mathare Valley in the slum. Some other time I was giving a series of talks in a church in Mathare on marriage. I would speak in the morning service then we remain behind with the couples. And I was talking to them about marriage and telling them it is wrong to be in a marriage without confirming it. You know a lot of poor people don’t have weddings because they are expensive. So you end up finding people who are in church but they don’t have a marriage certificate. So when the guy is tired of you he just leaves you. And I told them, it is not Christian. If you are in the church you need to confirm your wedding.
And it doesn’t have to be on a Saturday. So tea is not part of weddings, I told them. Tea, if you are rich don’t be mean, give us the tea but it is not part of the wedding. The wedding is what you do in church and there are no payments. In fact my recommendation is, do your wedding on a Sunday service because if you do it on a Saturday we might ask you for food. But on Sunday we normally come together to worship, isn’t it? So the same way we dedicate a baby is the same way we dedicate your marriage. You know one of them took me seriously? The next month when I came,there was a wedding. of course they couldn’t buy any white dress. The level of poverty in the place is very high. They just came ready to be wedded. So since I am not a pastor myself, the pastor wedded them, then I preached, then they were together, sitting together, but they were officially now married .They had no car. So it was now my job to drive them, meandering into Mathare to their house, at least for their first day not to go on foot.
Now, you need to understand clearly that when you start getting a problem when you meet poor people, most likely you value yourself as being rich and you think you are better because you are richer. When your value is based on what you have, rest assured when you meet somebody richer than you, you will be intimidated, you will feel unhappy. So by the way you are treating these poor people,prepare yourself for frustration because there is always somebody richer than you.
Day 7
Luke 12
16 And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. 17 He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’18 “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. 19 And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’20 “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’21 “This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.
So I hope you can see then, when you are a steward you distance yourself from your possession. Of course Jesus put it very clearly to the rich man, tonight you will be gone. Then whose possession will the harvest be. Then that story ends with,
a man’s life does not consist in the things he possess.
You know the story. So it is clear in the word of God we do not own what we possess and yet for many of us, the car we drive, the house we stay in determines who we think we are. The other day I had a friend of mine who does business and his business was not doing well. He couldn’t pay his rent, but he completely refused to move out of the house, since it would reflect badly on who he is.It is a non-Christian who is a landlord. One month without paying, the second month without paying. Now he started running away from the landlord. After six months, the man acted. People can be cruel, he just went to court. There is a law that allows you to pay for your debtor to be jailed at your cost. You pay yourself. Because you see once you can prove the debt you then put him in jail until he pays. But there is an amount of money you pay everyday because the government is not the one that put him there. So you pay for his stay in the prison.
Is there something like that in your country ? It is there in Kenya. But you see now it is costing you money. Judge agrees how much you will be paying to the prison’s department per day. The assumption is as soon as he stays for some time in prison, one day the relatives will come and pay the debt. As soon as he pays he is out because it is only the debt holding him there.
You know the first time I heard Brother so and so is in prison I asked … What has happened? So we gathered together, quickly raised money, because it was very embarrassing. We have preached together. So we quickly got him out, then I told him I would like to have fellowship with him.
When he came to me he was blaming the rich man. I said, Is it true you owed him six month’s rent? Yes. But he didn’t understand that anybody can have a difficult time. Now, why were you staying in that estate? Why couldn’t you move to the next cheaper one? No. It is embarrassing for my children.
Are you getting the point? He feels like to say I am coming from the lower cost estate his value will go down. Your value has nothing to do with the house you stay in, your value is in God, and He may send you to a slum to teach you a lesson. That doesn’t mean tomorrow He will not put you to the high and mighty. The important thing is there is an experience He wants you to go through, but he doesn’t value you any less.
So when you learn how to distance yourself from your money, your value will not be tied to possessions , because it is not yours. It is God‘s money you are managing, you will be at peace at every level of income and you will value yourself the way God values you irrespective of where you are.