Financial advisors may have warned you previously that you must protect the seed (your assets) for next year’s harvest (future growth opportunities). Christian investors or businesspeople are typically the first to express concern over deploying too much seed, thinking that they must be “good stewards.” As stewards of God’s resources, we must invest in ways that accomplish His eternal purposes.

When we invest as God’s steward, we flip conventional investing goals on their head, paving the way for alternative, additional goals. Investors are able to facilitate eternal impact such as community reconciliation, restoring and improving the environment through sustainable agriculture, and providing resources for people who follow Christ to make Him known among unreached people groups. In the eyes of God, those returns are anything but nominal. They are literally life-changing.

Have you ever wondered where our word economy comes from?  
In a wealthy household in ancient Greece, the owner would often entrust the management of his affairs and material resources, both financial and people, to a steward. In Greek, the word for steward is oikonomos: the oikos is the house, and nomos is connected to the act of managing.