Dear Youth!
Imagine you are working in a company as a supervisor. You hire other people to work for you as your employees. You handpick them. You give them a clear task. You give them all the equipment, resources, support, and knowledge that they need to do their work well.
One week later, they’re nowhere to be seen in your workplace. Instead, you bump into them walking down the street and you ask them, “Where have you been? Why aren’t you working?” They look at you blankly, pause, and one by one they reply. “The work was so difficult and you never helped me, so I gave up.” “I thought I could work from home.” “I didn’t know you wanted me to start working already.” “I thought we were just friends. I didn’t know I was working for you.” Bizarre, isn’t it?
The Bible teaches that if you are a Christian, you are a steward. What is a steward? A steward is someone who has been entrusted with the resources of another person to use those resources for a specific purpose. Every child of God has been entrusted by God with certain resources for certain reasons. In other words, we have been made stewards of God by none other than God Himself. Sadly, many of us walk around often imagining ourselves to be faithful, when in reality we manage nothing more than our own business, instead of the Lord’s.
We so easily forget the obvious answers to the following questions: What greater privilege can there possibly be than to be employed in the Lord’s service? Who better of a master can you possibly serve than Jesus Christ? Where will you find a more inexhaustible source of strength, comfort, wisdom, joy, peace, etc. to empower and sustain you in your work than in supernatural, divine riches? Do you think Christ would call you to be His child only to leave you in the dark about how to serve Him? He wouldn’t, and He hasn’t.
That’s why He had the grounds to offer a strong warning to His disciples while He was on earth. He not only promises the greatest blessing if you serve Him faithfully, He promises the greatest punishment if you serve Him unfaithfully.
Let these shocking words sink deep into your heart:
Luke 12:42-47 “And the Lord said, Who then is that faithful and wise steward, whom his lord shall make ruler over his household, to give them their portion of meat in due season? Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing. Of a truth I say unto you, that he will make him ruler over all that he hath.
But and if that servant say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming; and shall begin to beat the menservants and maidens, and to eat and drink, and to be drunken; The lord of that servant will come in a day when he looketh not for him, and at an hour when he is not aware, and will cut him in sunder, and will appoint him his portion with the unbelievers. And that servant, which knew his lord's will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes.”
May these words spoken by Jesus impress upon your heart an overwhelming burden to discover what it means for you to be God’s faithful stewards throughout this camp. This is your mission over the next few days, so that Jesus will find you faithful and reward you, not unfaithful and punish you. Please pray for yourself and for one another, that each of us will walk away from this camp back into homes, schools, workplaces and churches as eager, empowered, enflamed stewards of the most high God. Now please refer to your camp group descriptions for brief portraits of shining examples of faithful stewardship :)
Your brother in Christ, Joshua