How to Be a Wise Manager
By Rick Warren
“Once there was a rich man who had a manager to take care of his business” (Luke 16:1 NCV).
You don’t really own anything. What you think you own is really on loan. You didn’t own it before you were born. You’re not going to own it after you die. It all belongs to God, and he just loans it to you for a few decades.
Jesus told a story in Luke 16 about a man who let a manager take care of his property. We’re all in management. Everything you have is a gift from God, and he gives it to you for a while to steward. He wants to see that you’re going to wisely manage what belongs to him. God wants to see if you’ll be a good manager of his property.
If you start looking at everything in your life as being on loan, then a lot of your worry will disappear.
Imagine if you looked at your car and said, “This is God’s car, not mine. He loaned it to me, and I get to use it.” The next time you got in a fender bender, you would also be able to say, “God, you have a dent in your car. It’s not my car. You loaned it to me. You gave me money to get it. What do you want to do about your car, God?” You’re going to lose a lot of your worry when you rely on God to give you wisdom for the things he’s entrusted to you.
Here’s the thing: If you’re in charge and you’re the master of your fate, then you’ve got to pay for it all. You’ve got to worry about where the resources are going to come from.
But if you trust in God as his child and see yourself as a manager, not the boss, then you’re not responsible for figuring out how to pay for it all. You’re the employee. God’s the employer. He’s ultimately in charge of the benefits package.
The first verse in this story says, “Once there was a rich man who had a manager to take care of his business” (Luke 16:1 NCV). But the manager was wasting his master’s possessions.
Anytime you waste money, you’re wasting God’s money. Understanding that truth will change the way you buy!
Seeing your money as God’s will change the way you think. Seeing yourself as just a manager and not the owner will change your life and allow you to make the most of what you’ve been given.
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This devotional © 2018 by Rick Warren. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
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