Stewardship and Mission

Dear Conversation Tree family,
Happy Sabbath.

I've been looking at next week’s lesson: “Stewardship and Mission,” and I have a confession.
At first glance, I thought I knew where this lesson was going.

Stewardship.

You know the usual territory.

• Money.
• Tithes.
• Offerings.
• Budgets.
• Giving.
• Responsible management.

Important things, certainly. But then I came across a sentence that made me stop.
Paul says:
“Though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor.”
And I began wondering…

• What if we've been looking at stewardship from the wrong end?
• What if stewardship isn't primarily about what we give God?
• What if it begins with what God has already given us?

And then it gets even more interesting.
Because the moment I put Jesus at the center of the lesson, stewardship and mission suddenly became inseparable.
God gives.
Christ gives.
And somehow, we are invited into that giving.

But here is the question I don't want to answer for you before tomorrow:
Why does God give something to one person that another person needs?

Think about that.

• Why does one person have resources while another has a need?
• Why does one have a gift for teaching, another for encouraging, another for giving, another for serving?
• Why does one have money, another time, another influence, another a skill that someone else desperately needs?

Is it all simply for our own benefit?
Or could it be that some of what God puts in our hands is intended to pass through our hands?

That question takes us somewhere very different from a discussion about money.
It takes us to Jesus.
To grace.
To generosity.
To mission.
And perhaps even to a question we don't always like asking:
What happens when God's blessings reach us—but stop with us?

I'm not going to answer that this afternoon.
Tomorrow, the Tree comes alive.
And I suspect this lesson may make us look at something very familiar in a completely different way.

So come ready.
Bring your Bible.
Bring your experience.
Bring your questions.

And perhaps most importantly…
bring an open heart.
Because tomorrow we aren't just going to talk about what we have.
_We're going to ask:
Why did God put it in our hands ?