Stewardship as Total Surrender

"Stewardship entails more than how we manage our money, time, talents, or body. It is first and foremost the total submission of self to the Lord. Only when self is surrendered can there be true stewardship of all other things entrusted to our care. Stewardship, then, can be defined as the total surrender of all that we are and all that we have to supreme lordship of Jesus Christ. It is giving up what we consider most valuable - our ideas, our rights, our independence, our very lives - to the ownership and direction of Christ...Notice that in order for us to willingly give "all that we have: to God we must first willingly give "all that we are" to Him. We must totally surrender self. In other words, God will only accept "our" time, talents, tithes, offerings, our worship, our sacrifices - namely, our "all" - if, and only if we first give ourselves to Him. Total surrender, then is a choice we make - a mindset we adopt - to willingly give ourselves and our all to the ownership, direction, and control of Christ. Rightly understood, stewardship is dying to self. It is living a life of selflessness. It reveals whether or not we are totally surrendered to Christ. In short, stewardship is the test of the genuineness of our Christianity. Viewed from a different perspective, God designed the principles of stewardship to help us overcome our natural tendency to selfishness. Stewardship seeks to replace our obsession with getting with the spirit of giving - giving self and giving all." - Koranteng-Pipim, PhD, Samuel, and Steve Kasperbauer. God is Faithful: Stewardship - A Journey of Faith & A Test of Commitment. Ann Arbor, Michigan: Berean Books, 2006. 23-25. Print.