Your Money Is God’s Money

Everything belongs to God. Of course, God’s possessions include all the wealth throughout history. This means your money isn’t your money! It’s God’s money. David wanted to build a house (or temple) for God. When he was told he couldn’t, he did everything he could to help his son Solomon make this happen, only stopping short of doing the building himself. David collected the materials, including the silver and gold. After the people gave even more than was needed, David prayed that they were simply giving back to God what He had given them. When we understand that all wealth belongs to God, our entire perspective of money changes. We come to view our finances correctly as one big stewardship.

If we understand money is a stewardship, we will be wiser with the money God has given us. We will be less likely to waste it because we understand it is God’s money versus our own. We will even find it easier to be generous and give it away because we know it is God’s money versus our own.

If you’ve ever put someone in charge of something that belongs to you, you know the one thing you value more than anything else is faithfulness. The parable of the talents gives us the encouragement we need to be faithful.

A talent was the largest denomination of money in the Greco-Roman world, estimated to be worth as much as 6,000 denarii. Because a denarius was one day’s wage, this was approximately twenty years’ worth of work. Although the talents in the parable can represent any of the stewardships in our lives—time, marriage, children, abilities, possessions, positions in life—because Jesus chose a unit of money, this makes the parable particularly applicable to the stewardship of finances.

Second, only to time, there aren’t many things we waste more than money. This parable should inspire us to act otherwise and be faithful stewards. The “man” or “lord” in this parable is Jesus, and the trip “to a far country” is His return to heaven. The master returned from his journey and wanted to know what the servants did with the talents he gave to them. The first man said, “Lord, you delivered to me,” showing he understood the talents were entrusted to him rather than earned by him.