Dear You, you're not irreplaceable

By Leo sekoere

Stewardship is one of the greatest precepts in The Kingdom of Heaven. So much so that the bible is full of examples of men and women who failed at stewardship- these were replaced in a flash. There is a great lesson to be learned here, God wants to do a great thing in the area he has placed you but he is not going to use you if you have not taken stewardship seriously.

Here’s a simple definition of ‘stewardship’: The job of taking care of something. Taking care of something means being responsible/accountable. The connotations are preservation, protection and managing it well. A good steward goes the extra mile and treats what is entrusted upon him as his prized possession.

In Matthew 25:14, Jesus likens the Kingdom of Heaven to a man travelling into a far country, who calls his servants and delivers goods to them. To one he gives five talents, to another two and to the other one. To every man according to his own ability. See, that which you received from God is just enough for you to handle. God knew that if he trusted you with it you would be able to be responsible; preserving, protecting and managing it to His glory. Verse 15 says after he gave his servants this money, he started on his journey (this shows us how he trusted his servants). After he left, two of his servants doubled the talents they received but the servant who was given one talent just hid his in the ground. When the master returned, he was so impressed with the two who doubled his money that he called them good and faithful. He told them that because they had been faithful over a few things, he would make them rulers over many things, subsequently he invited them into the “joy of their lord”. The servant who hid his talent in the ground was called wicked and lazy and was sent away into outer darkness after his talent had been taken away.

In Ester chapter 1, we also see a Queen who failed to steward her crown. She failed to honor her title as Queen and she was replaced in a flash. Queen Vashti was said to be the most beautiful, that along with the fact that she owned the crown must’ve made her feel irreplaceable. But she wasn’t, no one on this earth is irreplaceable- DON’T EVER GET TOO COMFORTABLE AND PRESUMPTUOUS. There’s a notion called GRACE under which people get things they don’t deserve. There could be someone better than you occupying your position but instead, God opened that door for you, not because there’s something great about you but because of His Grace. You ought to be grateful in your heart, through your words and through your actions.

Speaking of GRACE: in the book of 1 Samuel we read about a young man called Saul and how he started on a desperate journey, looking for his father’s lost donkeys but instead found GRACE. A prophet of God meets him along the way and tells him that he is going to be Israel’s first king. I love his humble and modest response “Am I not a Benjamite, of the smallest of the tribes of Israel, and my family the least of all the families of the tribe of Benjamin? Why then do you speak like this to me?” .Here, Saul’s eyes were open to Grace, he knew that he was being given a position he didn’t deserve.

Like many of us, Saul started off humble but once the reality of being a king became alive to him, his head grew too big and he started being autonomous-disregarding the leadership of GOD. 1 Samuel 13:13 says that God sent Samuel to set him right. Samuel told him that he acted foolishly and had not kept the commandment of the Lord therefore God had resolved to replace him with “A man after His own heart”. This “Man after God’s heart” is not someone who was just created seconds before this conversation. He was there all the time but watch how God still gave Saul a chance to lead Israel even though he had a far better option. This is Grace! Verse 14 tells us that the main reason why God took the kingdom away from Saul was because “he did not keep what the Lord committed to his trust”.

In Apostle Paul’s letters to Timothy, He keeps emphasizing on how it is important for the young leader to “guard the deposit” and honor the work of God in his life. Paul must’ve known that when a person stops honoring the things that God has given them, they lose them. 1 Timothy 6:20- Guard what was committed to your trust.

Please understand that if you fail to show God faithfulness over what he has given you, He will not give you more than what you have. You will not get that job you’re eyeing if you fail at being a blessing at your current job. You will not get an increase in your finances if all you do is use money in unwise ways. Be a good steward of your body, health, relationships, money and job- You will see a promotion in these areas.