00:00:00 Thanks for joining me on episode 717 of the inspired stewardship podcast. I'm Julie Tafolla. I challenge you to invest in yourself and others develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, talent and treasures, to live out your calling. Having the ability to communicate and build relationships is vital. And one inspirational way to develop that is to listen to this,
00:00:30 the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott made her, You know, whenever I'm tired, whenever I've had a bad day, whenever things aren't going well, that's when it's hard to keep that mindset. And that's when practicing this mindset of stewardship in good times and bad when things are going well. And when things are going poorly, that's what allows it to continue to work.
00:01:03 That's what allows it to continue to happen. That's what allows you to do it welcome. And thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true home. In the inspired stewardship podcast. We'll learn to invest in yourself,
00:01:27 invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world. Good. Today's spiritual foundation episode about investing in yourself. I talk with you about why stewardship isn't really about you. I share why stewardship is always focused on others and how this other focus helps us keep the right mindset. One of the interesting things about stewardship is all so often we,
00:02:01 we think about it in terms of money. And what's more, a lot of times we think about it in terms of money that we're taking care of for ourselves. You know, that's the wrong outlook. That's the wrong view, stewardship. Isn't about you and stewardship is it for you. If, if we truly believe that God owns it all, and God has asked us to manage some small portion of something for God's benefit and for the benefit of others,
00:02:33 then stewardship is always other focused. You know, one of the passages I love about this is from first Peter chapter four, verses eight through 11. And if you go look at the full context, this is talking about what we should do as Christians for one another. And it says here above all love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins,
00:03:00 offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others as faithful stewards of God's grace and its various forms. If anyone speaks they should do so. As one who speaks the very words of God, if anyone serves they should do so with the strength God provides. So that in all things, God may be praised through Jesus Christ to him be the glory and the power forever and ever.
00:03:28 Amen. You know, above all love each other deeply because love covers a multitude of sins. Most of us have probably heard that or seen that cross stitched on a, on a pillow somewhere. But I love the fact that this is in this passage, that then in verse 10 says that each of you should use whatever gifts you have received to serve others as faithful stewards.
00:03:51 This idea that we do stewardship, not for ourselves, but for others is important. But Jared and I talked about this yesterday, whenever we were talking about making money as a financial advisor, and when you're doing this with a biblical mind to stewardship, it's not so that you end up with a big pile of money it's so that that money can be used to bless others either directly or indirectly,
00:04:19 but it doesn't matter. It's still about blessing others. Stewardship being focused on others is what keeps it from becoming greed. It's what keeps it from becoming hoarding is what keeps you from having that mindset of this is mine. And I need to hold onto it with both fists. And the ironic thing is, is when you have that more open mindset, not only does that allow you to let your gifts flow out,
00:04:45 but it also allows gifts and blessings to flow to you. Having an open mind and open fist and open hand allows you to see the relationship with others more freely. It allows you to be more loving. It allows you to be more forgiving. It allows you to recognize that all of the gifts that you have are there so that you can help others.
00:05:08 And when you do that, when you truly help others and serve others, then things come back to you just naturally not necessarily in the form of money though, sometimes it is, but in various forms, blessings flow back to you. It allows you to keep the right mindset. Again, it allows you to recognize that money is the effect of living this way.
00:05:33 Not the cause. It's not about a big pile of money allows you to have freedom and flexibility and peace. It's having peace and freedom and flexibility allows money to flow into your life. This isn't the secret, this isn't magic. This is a karma. It's just the fact that the way we live, the way our minds view things, the way we limiting beliefs on ourselves and that we limit what happens and choke down on our own blessings and our giftings is going to end up resulting in things that happen.
00:06:11 The, the, the way we live is that a cause and effect universe. And one of the ironic things is as we all too often put the cause before the effect are put the effect before the cause. Sometimes we think of the effect as the cause and the cause is the effect. And that's what I'm arguing. We do a lot of ties with stewardship.
00:06:31 We think about getting blessed with things as being, because we deserve it because we've done something to earn it because we've been blessed with more talents. But I would say that those blessings come as a result of having that mindset of being other focused, having that mindset of taking care of others, having the mindset of stewardship. That's why it's above all above all love each other deeply because love covers a multitude of sins,
00:07:03 offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. Each of you should use whatever gifts you have to serve others. If you speak, speak as if it's the word of God, if anyone serves they should do so with the strength that God provides, that's what it's about. You know, whenever I'm tired, whenever I've had a bad day, whenever things aren't going well,
00:07:28 that's when it's hard to keep that mindset. And that's when practicing this mindset of stewardship in good times and bad when things are going well. And when things are going poorly, that's what allows it to continue to work. That's what allows it to continue to happen. That's what allows you to do it whenever it feels like there's no reason to keep doing it when your mindset is not on others,
00:07:53 but as on yourself, that's the time that you have to work the hardest to turn your mindset back to others. It's always about the relationships we have with others and with God outwardly out of that, does the strong relationship with ourself come. That's what I believe stewardship is. And that's what I think Jared and I were talking about yesterday. That's the key to real biblical wealth.
00:08:23 Thanks for listening. Thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast, as a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively, listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you enjoyed this episode, do me a favor, go over to facebook.com/inspired stewardship and like our Facebook page and market that you'd like to get notifications from us so that we can connect with you on Facebook and make sure that we're serving you to the best of our abilities with time and tips there until next time,
00:09:14 invest your time, your talent and your treasures, develop your influence and impact the world.