Quotes About Stewardship

We talk about players going broke, but we don't talk about why that is happening.

Medieval and Tudor people didn't treat buildings as a semi-disposable resource like we do.

I have to take responsibility for anything that happened within its businesses.

I don't want to leave my successor and my children to pay for France's debt.

I maintain that if there is such a thing as a true and honest environmentalist, it's people like Slim and hopefully me, who have been caretakers of the land all our lives, along with the generations before us.

When then-New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer sued me in 2003 over my stewardship as a director of the New York Stock Exchange, the NYSE's legal expenses were more than $100 million, which made it perhaps the priciest litigation in the state's history.

I think its time to change and balance the environment and growth. If we don't do that, we're going to suffer a hard landing one day very soon.

For how many people do you think might yet stand on this planet before the sun grows cold? That's the responsibility we hold in our hands.

What you do with your resources in this life is your autobiography.

God doesn't make us rich so we can indulge ourselves and spoil our children, or so we can insulate ourselves form needing God's provision. God gives us abundant material blessing so that we can give it away, and give it generously.

If economic catastrophe does come, will it be a time that draws Christians together to share every resource we have, or will it drive us apart to hide in our own basements or mountain retreats, guarding at gunpoint our private stores from others? If we faithfully use our assets for his kingdom now, rather than hoarding them, can't we trust our faithful God to provide for us then?

Christians are God's delivery people, through whom he does his giving to a needy world. We are conduits of God's grace to others. Our eternal investment portfolio should be full of the most strategic kingdom-building projects to which we can disburse God's funds.

Delaying giving as a strategy for future kingdom building is risky. We could hold on to assets out of fear of letting go or unwillingness to surrender control to the Lord. As long as money lies within our grasp, there's not only the danger that we'll lose the assets, but also that we'll change our minds or be seduced by the status, prestige, and recognition of controlling (or having our name attached to the distribution of) what belongs to God.

A steward manages assets for the owner's benefit. The steward carries no sense of entitlement to the assets he manages. It's his job to find out what the owner wants done with his assets, then carry out his will.

Tithing isn't the ceiling of giving; it's the floor. It's not the finish line of giving; it's the starting blocks. Tithes can launch us into the mind-set, skills, and habits of grace giving.

In the midst of prosperity, the challenge for believers is to handle wealth in such a way that it acts as a blessing, not a curse.

The opportunities for using our financial resources to spread the gospel and strengthen the church all over the world are greater than they've ever been. As God raised up Esther for just such a time as hers, I'm convinced he's raise us up, with all our wealth, to help fulfill the great commission. The question is, what are we doing with that money? Our job is to make sure it gets to his intended recipients.

Once we understood that we were giving away God's money to do God's work, we discovered a peace and joy we never had back when we thought it was our money!

We should remember Christ's words, 'Let nothing be wasted,' when we look in our refrigerators and garbage cans and garages.

We are [God's] by creation, and again by redemption. He has every right to tell me what to do with my mind and body. I have. I right to do whatever I want with my body.

countless people step into financial bondage because they spend money they don't have in order to underwrite a "once in a lifetime opportunity." God is not behind every good deal! Self-control means turning down most good deals on things we want because God may have other and better plans for his money.

He says to use it "to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings" (Luke 16:9, NIV).

God provides not only in what he gives us, but at times in what he keeps from us. Have you ever noticed that excess money just seems to dissipate in a multitude of directions?

In spending this money, am I acting as if I owned it, or am I acting as the Lord's trustee? • What Scripture requires me to spend this money in this way? • Can I offer up this purchase as a sacrifice to the Lord? • Will God reward me for this expenditure at the resurrection of the just?