Stewardship While Living
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In giving to the work of God, you are laying up for yourselves treasures
in heaven. All that you lay up above is secure from disaster and loss,
and is increasing to an eternal, an enduring substance.—
The Review
and Herald, January 24, 1888
.
Stewardship a Personal Responsibility
Parents should exercise the right that God has given them. He
entrusted to them the talents He would have them use to His glory. The
children were not to become responsible for the talents of the father.
While they have sound minds and good judgment, parents should, with
prayerful consideration, and with the help of proper counselors who
have experience in the truth and a knowledge of the divine will, make
disposition of their property.
If they have children who are afflicted or are struggling in poverty,
and who will make a judicious use of means, they should be considered.
But if they have unbelieving children who have abundance of this
world, and who are serving the world, they commit a sin against the
Master who has made them His stewards, by placing means in their
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hands merely because they are their children. God’s claims are not to
be lightly regarded.
And it should be distinctly understood that because parents have
made their will, this will not prevent them from giving means to the
cause of God while they live. This they should do. They should have
the satisfaction here, and the reward hereafter, of disposing of their
surplus means while they live. They should do their part to advance
the cause of God. They should use the means lent them by the Master
to carry on the work which needs to be done in His vineyard.
The love of money lies at the root of nearly all the crimes com-
mitted in the world. Fathers who selfishly retain their means to enrich
their children, and who do not see the wants of the cause of God and
relieve them, make a terrible mistake. The children whom they think
to bless with their means are cursed with it.
Money left to children frequently becomes a root of bitterness.
They often quarrel over the property left them, and in case of a will,
are seldom all satisfied with the disposition made by the father. And in-
stead of the means left exciting gratitude and reverence for his memory,
it creates dissatisfaction, murmuring, envy, and disrespect. Brothers