We are all of us represented in this estate manager. The landlord of the universe has given you a life and a body, and powers, faculties, and abilities. It is your estate as it were. But actually it isn't yours; it is God's. It is lent to you, on lease to you. You are the manager of it. You are the custodian of it. By rights it is God's, and you are here for a season. Now the question is, have you been faithful to God with it? Or like that ancient estate manager. do you say, ‘Well, the owner isn't around, therefore I will be the owner. I shall rather enjoy walking around this place every night as though it is mine – sauntering about and enriching myself.’ Is that our response? Is that what we have done with our life? ‘It is my life; it is my body; it is my powers, my memory, my gifts, whatever they are.’ In whatever way you are gifted, whatever abilities God has given you, you say, it is yours. You are like that ancient estate manager. Wouldn't you think that he would become nervous sometimes? Wouldn't you think as he would have wandered around the estate, and suddenly a chill came down his spine? ‘Oh dear! The books for the last five years are terrible. If I ever get inspected, I am going to be thrown out of here in no time. At any time the owner could say, “There is nothing is coming from this estate. What is my steward doing? Is he cheating me?”’ That didn't seem to occur to the steward. The more he behaved as though he was the owner, the more he seemed to be convinced he was, and it just didn't bother him at all that it could all come to an end.
Is it the same with us? The more we say, ‘This is my body. This is my life. It isn't given to me. It isn't lent to me. It isn't leased from God. There is no landlord in heaven. There is no one to whom I am accountable.’ The more you go on just living your life your own way, all for yourself, the less perhaps it worries you that one day you may be called to account. God may say, ‘What is this that I hear of you? Render up the account. For it may be that I will take you out of this life. It will be the end, and I want to know what you have done with this life, what you have done with the body which I lent you and which I gave you.’
Something will dramatically change in heaven when we will somehow truly possess something of our own but not until we have proven ourselves faithful in handling this world’s good, which we should regard as the stewarded goods of another – the Lord.