Ezekiel 16:15-19 "But you thought your fame and beauty were your own. So you gave yourself as a prostitute to every man who came along. Your beauty was theirs for the asking. 16 You used the lovely things I gave you to make shrines for idols, where you played the prostitute. Unbelievable! How could such a thing ever happen? 17 You took the very jewels and gold and silver ornaments I had given you and made statues of men and worshiped them. This is adultery against me! 18 You used the beautifully embroidered clothes I gave you to dress your idols. Then you used my special oil and my incense to worship them. 19 Imagine it! You set before them as a sacrifice the choice flour, olive oil, and honey I had given you, says the Sovereign Lord."
The children of Israel made the mistake of thinking that their "fame and beauty was their own" and they began to give themselves away to idols and they began to prostitute themselves out to others.
Hear me when I say we are bought with a price, we are not our own. Everything we have comes from God, every good thing belongs to him. We lost ownership of our lives when we accepted Jesus and received the gift of eternal life.(1Corinthians 6:19-20) We are stewards of the gifts and graces of God. We don't have the authority to give our lives or anything in it away to anyone or anything other than to God, for his glory and honor. We were made by him and for him, we exist for the glory of God.
Imagine if you went into work tomorrow and started giving away the supplies and products of your company, what would happen? They would fire you for theft and prosecute you for stealing something that did not belong to you. The Bible is very clear, we have been purchased by God and we do not own our lives. When you give yourself away to the things of this world, you are a thief, a robber and a prostitute.
God desires us to live a "Blessed Life" full of his Glory, but that is only possible when we understand the difference between ownership and stewardship. When a steward acts like a owner, then the owner has no choice but to bring correction and discipline to the steward. Which usually means he takes away what he once had until he can prove that he can be faithful with the owners possessions. Faithfulness is the key to stewardship, it empowers you to be promoted and entrusted with more than you have ever had before. When a steward uses what the owner has given him, to fulfill the will and desires of the owner he is blessed and given even more.
Are you using what you have to do the will of the one who gave it to you? Are you being a faithful steward or are you acting like the owner and giving away what doesn't belong to you?
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