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To: Cronos; fwdude; narses; Mad Dawg; mlizzy
Thank you for asking, dear brother in Christ!

"All that there is" belongs to God - every one, every thing, every where and every when.

The earth [is] the LORD'S, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein. - Psalms 24:1

God has giving each of us the gift of life (Genesis 2) which includes not just awareness but freedom of movement, the ability to choose and act on those choices.

And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that [were] on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD. - Jos 24:15

That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded [is] death; but to be spiritually minded [is] life and peace. - Romans 8:4-6

And so on.

We are stewards of these gifts - of our lives, of family, of things, of time, etc. We never own them.

And He gives us instructions (Scriptures) on how to be good stewards and warns us that we will be held accountable for what we did with those gifts.

The Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:19-30) speaks to that point directly. The owner is God and the servants are just stewards of his possessions.

And the Great Commandment speaks directly to the proper stewardship of our hearts, minds and souls:

Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. - Matt 22:37-38

And again,

What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost [which is] in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? - I Cor 6:19

God's Name is I AM.

2,297 posted on 06/12/2011 11:03:51 PM PDT by Alamo-Girl
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To: Alamo-Girl; fwdude; narses; Mad Dawg; mlizzy
All belongs to God, yes, we all agree on that, He is the ultimate owner by fact of being Creator.

Can I correct state that this philosophy is basically summed up as The owner is God and the servants are just stewards of his possessions.?

As the parable of the talents indicates we are given this gift and we should grow it, live out the grace and move on our path of sanctification.

We can give our hearts to anyone we choose, just as in the parable we can do what we will with the talents given -- Mark 25:14-30

16 The man who had received five bags of gold went at once and put his money to work and gained five bags more. 17 So also, the one with two bags of gold gained two more. 18 But the man who had received one bag went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money.
"Put the money to work" -- this means used the gift, maybe even lent it to someone else, right?

The teaching we all know is that our hearts are gifts from God -- this has been Church teaching at least 1900 before the phrase "stewardship of the heart" -- and you can freely use your body, heart, soul, homes, family, country for good or evil -- as you pointed out, this is free will.

You are the ultimate steward as in you choose what to do with the gift, but you can also, like the people in the Parable of the Talents, lend, give your gifts to another to make it grow.

If I take this further -- if you are given the money by your master, to make it grow in say the stock market (let's assume it's not a down-cycle year!), you invest individually. You can also invest as a group (a mutual fund). In the mutual fund you are still the steward of your money/heart, but you ask someone else to help you make it grow -- you do not give it in the sense of permanent transfer, because it's not yours to give permanently, but you can give i.e. enlist a mutual fund manager to help you and others in the group to grow together in grace.

2,299 posted on 06/13/2011 1:06:19 AM PDT by Cronos ( W Szczebrzeszynie chrząszcz brzmi w trzcinie I Szczebrzeszyn z tego słynie.)
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To: Alamo-Girl; fwdude; narses; Mad Dawg; mlizzy
Specifically to fwdude's post, while I, personally do not devote myself to these prayers (I go for mass and pray to God and ask for help from my fellow Christians on earth and in heaven: Private revelations do not form part of the deposit of faith of the Catholic Church, and its members are not bound to believe in any of them. ), that is technically correct and not blasphemous as you are not permanently giving something which you don't even own. you are dedicating, consecrating it for a use, to grow as we see in the Parable of the Talents

consecrate: to devote or dedicate to some purpose: a life consecrated to science.

Now as in the analogy of the MF mgr, or even better as a focusing point, from what I understand of that dedication it was specifically for the conversion of Russia, just after communism triumphed there.

I don't say this and was still in my pre-teens when communism fell, but let me repeat to you my conversations with people from Russia, Poland, Serbia and other parts of the Eastern block -- these are people aged 30 to 60 who lived through communism:

In the 80s, right up until 85, no one believed that communism would fall in their lifetimes. It seemed impossible, the state was too strong, too all-pervasive.

Even in Poland which never had the intense collectivisation as in Czechia or Russia or the Ukraine, where some private businesses were allowed, no one believed it would collapse, no-one even believed it would change or soften in their lifetimes.

It was impossible

The election of the first Slavic pope gave hope, but hope that sometime in the future there would be some change.

Yet, something happened -- so incredibly quickly no one completely understands why or how. It seems miraculous, isn't it?

And I believe that it WAS miraculous -- a whole dedication of millions of prayers, of "talents", the concentration of the grace, freely given by the stewards to be used for a particular purpose, to collapse communism -- and it worked.

Maybe?

2,300 posted on 06/13/2011 1:23:44 AM PDT by Cronos ( W Szczebrzeszynie chrząszcz brzmi w trzcinie I Szczebrzeszyn z tego słynie.)
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To: Alamo-Girl

AMEN! AMEN! AMEN!

THX THX.


2,323 posted on 06/13/2011 8:00:54 AM PDT by Quix (Times are a changin' INSURE you have believed in your heart & confessed Jesus as Lord Come NtheFlesh)
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