Renting or lending your property to people is a tricky thing.  Finding the right person, who will care for your things, while using them, is hard. You want to avoid two extremes.  At one end, there are people who will not take any responsibility for what they have on loan; such people tend to neglect or abuse what is not theirs while complaining at the same time.  At the other end, there are people who consider the loan too much as their own, making decisions and changes as though they were the owners without the owner’s consent.

God lends us many things – His planet, His Australia, our bodies, our children, our money, His church. We must be careful that we do not fall into either extreme as “loanees”.  We must not neglect what God lends us nor should we presume ownership.  When we understand that all things are on loan from God then we behave differently.

For example, Christians recycle and avoid littering for we know that the earth and all that is in it is the Lord’s (Exodus 19:5).  We Christians also eat healthily, rest well, and care for our bodies because our bodies are not our own (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). Christians give at least 10% of their income to God’s work because they know that everything comes from God (1 Chron 29:14).

Please look at everything you have, and everyone you know, as being on loan from God. Please do not neglect or abuse things or people because you know that ‘All things were created by God’s Son, and everything was made for him.’ (Colossians 1:16)

Denis Oliver