If you have been working in Christian ministry for some time, your responsibilities have grown, and you supervise more and more people. In times like these you need to take care. Guard your heart. Make sure your compassion for the lost does not decline. Make sure you trust God daily for provision and wisdom, power and favor and grace. Guard your heart, make sure you do not boast in your own strength; boast in the Lord and in his mercy and kindness. One way you can guard your heart is to listen carefully to your disciples’ reports. Jesus did.

Delegation of ministry responsibility is a big part of church leadership. And delegation of ministry responsibility is also a big part of making disciples. But how much responsibility should I give to the people that I lead. If I give them too much responsibility, everyone gets frustrated; If I give too little, that’s not good either!

Stewards must give an account. • The shrewdness of the steward and the commendation from his master • The criticality of faithfulness in both small things and in our stewardship of resources An important principle that Jesus is trying to is convey that it is much better to be a just, or trustworthy, steward rather than an unjust one

A principle that we can take from these comments is that Jesus encourages us to be generous with our possessions in this life so that we can further the gospel and gain friends for eternity. This is similar to his teaching on wealth in the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus exhorted His followers to lay up treasures in heaven (Matthew 6:19–21). If we understand the principle that everything we own is a gift from God, then we realize that God is the owner of everything and that we are His stewards. As such, we are to use the Master’s resources to further the Master’s goals.

In this podcast and the two that will follow, we will explore three themes that I see in this story. * Stewards must give an account. * The shrewdness of the steward and the commendation from his master * The criticality of faithfulness in both small things and in our stewardship of finances

Here are the key lessons from this parable.  God expects fruit in due season; He has provided all that is needed for fruit to be produced  His patience and grace grant more time to produce, and He treats us in a similar way  Ultimately there is accountability for the absence of fruit I close with this reminder from 2 Peter 1:3. His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.”

If we are to multiply disciples and leaders, we must do far more than simply

teach them new ideas. We must empower them to act. To empower means to

give strength, ability, and authority.

I shared 5 common themes from Jesus’ parables on this topic. Here are those first two again. 1. Character matters 2. Stewards have an obligation to account for their stewardship