God Owns It All

eDevotion

Encouragement for your daily walk with God 

The story goes that one day, when John Wesley was away from home, someone ran up to him, yelling, “Your house has burned down!” Wesley’s reply is classic, “No, it hasn’t, because I don’t own a house. The one I have been living in belongs to the Lord, and if it has burned down, that is one less responsibility for me to worry about.”

Wesley’s view of material possessions is a biblical view: God owns everything. That is crystal clear in Scripture. King David’s prayer sums it up, “All that is in heaven and in earth is Yours” [1 Chronicles 29:11]. There is a sole owner of everything — God. That means He not only owns the universe, He also owns you, your family, your house, your car…everything! So, like Wesley, when you lose a possession, you haven’t really lost it because it wasn’t yours anyway.

Although God does own everything, He entrusts us to be wise stewards of all that He gives to us. The renown Old Testament scholar, Walter Kaiser, wrote, “Material things, goods, and natural resources are in and of themselves ‘good,’ for they are all made by God: that is the constant refrain in the creation narrative of Genesis 1—‘and God saw that it was good.’ . . . The misuse of goods comes from unholy people. Forgetting that: (1) these are creations by God, (2) God gave men and women the ability to earn these possessions, and (3) goods must not be exalted to the level of ultimate or absolute concern and worth, or people begin to worship the created realm rather than the Creator himself. Such idolizing of the things of this world violates the first commandment and leads to an inversion of values in life.” 

God is the owner of all things - Worship Him as such.

God is the owner of all things - Be thankful for whatever He entrusts to you.

God is the owner of all things - Never allow your possession to be a cause to forget Him 

God is the owner of all things - Use them in a way that honors Him.

God owns everyone and everything.

The earth is the Lord’s, and all it contains, the world, and those who dwell in it. Psalm 24:1