[SchoolKids, Feb 2010, JAVanDevender]
Ezekiel 16:17-21 17 "You have also taken your beautiful jewelry from My gold and My silver, which I had given you, and made for yourself male images and played the harlot with them. 18 "You took your embroidered garments and covered them, and you set My oil and My incense before them. 19 "Also My food which I gave you -- the pastry of fine flour, oil, and honey which I fed you -- you set it before them as sweet incense; and so it was," says the Lord GOD. 20 "Moreover you took your sons and your daughters, whom you bore to Me, and these you sacrificed to them to be devoured. Were your acts of harlotry a small matter, 21 "that you have slain My children and offered them up to them by causing them to pass through the fire?
In the "parable of the talents" [Matt. 25:14ff] Jesus makes it pretty clear that in the Kingdom of God, God's servants are stewards of HIS resources. It is His gracious plan to put us in charge of His stuff and then expect us to use those things to His benefit and profit. To some He gives much stuff. To some He gives lesser amounts. Some are entrusted with a wider range of treasures, others less. But the same principle applies. It is His stuff and it is to be used, appreciated, respected, and honored as such.
This passage in Ezekiel sharply reinforces Jesus' teaching. What Jesus proclaimed was not something new... the essential principle that man is to be a diligent and faithful steward over God's resources goes back to Adam and Gen. 1. That which Jesus and Ezekiel emphasize is how seriously God takes this relationship.
The people of God are characterized as being a lewd, lascivious wife who is not only unfaithful to her husband but goes out and hires men to sleep with her. That's bad enough. .... it's more than bad enough. But God goes farther, pointing His finger at His people and saying - "and how did you treat the good things that I have given you? In what light did you consider MY gold... MY silver... MY food which I placed before you... MY children whom I gave you."
What God is reinforcing here is an idea that we either forget or never actually realize. When God gives us stuff... He doesn't pass over ownership... He doesn't give it to us as our possession. Even our children belong to God. Our very food... our income... our houses... the cars we drive... the relationships we gain... the church we attend... the artistic and social abilities we demonstrate... they all belong to God. We are essentially homeless, destitute beggars whom God is please to dress, feed and entrust with His household. As is only just, He expects us to be grateful and to show that gratitude in the attitude we take toward His possessions.
Across the board, throughout the full range of human endeavor, it is God's intention that like Bach upon completion of a musical work, we inscribe the words "Soli Deo Gloria" - to God's glory alone... upon the finished work. He expects every activity from parenting to painting, from victualing to vocation (sorry, I couldn't resist), to be consciously dedicated to the improvement of His Kingdom and to the advancing of His glory.
It is a call to excellence as well as a call to humility. Most of all it is a call to repent of our self-focus, our prideful appropriation of His supply, and our insistence that we be honored rather than Him... in everything.
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