Stewardship

APAD DAY 3

by Daniel Owino Ogweno
02/18/17
Not For Sale
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Chapter 15—CONSUMER CULTURE:
Buying in Conformity to Social and Psychological Dictates

Mass Production and Mass Consumption
Buying Things Because They Are On Sale
Buying Things Because They Are Trending
Buying Things Because of Status and Image
Buying Things Because of Their Utility and Necessity
Buying Things Because of Their Aesthetic Value
Other Small Scale Influencers
Reflections and Questions to Ponder

 Chapter 16—PROBLEMS OF PRODUCTION, DISTRIBUTION AND WASTAGE:
Missing God’s Intention of the Interdependence of Humanity

Earth Can Feed Her Inhabitants
Murmuring About Strangers?
Global Trends
Reflections and Questions to Ponder

NOTES
EPILOGUE
Appendix

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Preface

If there are things we would really want to manage, they are time and money. That is where the test and the weight of stewardship bears heavily. On reflection, I realized that sometimes we don’t take note of the little things we spend money and time on. They are little but they are significant—not only cumulatively but even otherwise. Spending time just relaxing may be as important and sometimes more important than working on something.

It is difficult to keep record of little things. I think these might be the things Christ will use to judge our vigilance. In Matthew 25 for example, Christ talks about things that were done by those who loved Him and these people are not even aware they did those things. They must not have kept record. If they were big things, they surely would have remembered so that when Christ says, “I was hungry and you fed Me,” they would respond: Yes, we remember, we did it!

As the reader goes through the introduction below, it is possible to get the impression that this book is scolding material prosperity. It is not. I have done the scolding elsewhere—in so far as it warrants its scope to be released from the confines of materialism.

This book is about, yes, stewardship. The reason prosperity is mentioned is to call the reader’s attention away from prosperity to stewardship. A steward is one who manages another’s property, finances, or other affairs. There has been an overemphasis on prosperity, but prosperity is not what we do, it is what results from what we do. What we do is stewardship. In fact, prosperity is a guaranteed natural product of good management. If this is appreciated, things will fall into place as I have noted in the introduction below.

In this book, I intend to interact with the reader to show the importance of the departments of stewardship and how they point out at what can correctly be described as the object of the first assignment at the beginning and the subject of accounting at the end. In the process of interacting, I pray that the reader’s eyes will see the fundamentality of stewardship in the management of life generally.

What we do on daily basis as far as life and resource managements are concerned gives us opportunities to do intermediate accountings. The latter is important as both rehearsal and reappraisal for the ultimate accounting before God. This book challenges the reader to be conscious about the fact that everything we do calls for a sense of responsibility and accountability.

In stewardship, we have a blueprint in what is expected of us in our relationship with God, one another, time and the environment of resources around us. In stewardship we have the-what we are expected to do; the-how we are supposed to do it; the-when we are supposed to do it, and lastly the-why we do what we do. The whats, the hows, the whens, and the whys can be so pliable that it is not possible to come up with a standard description of each. Their influence vary from person to person, time-to-time, and situation to situation, etc.

When I saw the significance of stewardship, I wondered why there is not as much enthusiasm in this matter as its primacy demands. I have since become an ardent believer in teaching stewardship. In it we learn not to be idle; we learn to manage the resources and account for them, including the very little things. If one is to prosper, it will come as a by-product of being a good steward.

We are perpetually surrounded by many demands to the extent that we feel bombarded. This means that we need to have a clear understanding of the weight of the concerns around us. If we correctly understand this, we will be in a position to prioritize accordingly and appropriately.

The assignment God gave us at the beginning remains. We only get fulfilled if we accomplish or remain in the right course of accomplishing the purpose of our life.

It is my prayer that the Holy Spirit will quicken the Word of God and illuminate the insights shared in this book so that the reader will have a moment of inspiration. May the said inspiration not only inform but also transform the reader’s life accordingly. It is also my prayer that the said moment of inspiration will not be a momentary inspiration but one that will become part of the reader’s everyday life until the life is fully lived; the purpose wholly fulfilled, and eternity devotedly secured. May the grace be abundant for this. Amen!

I wish you a blessed reading and a practical living.

Ogweno D.O.
Skien, Norway