What If You Treated Everything You Own as If It Wasn't Yours?

Meta Description: What's causing so much anxiety in our lives? Pastor Chris Beall explores a surprising answer—and a kingdom-minded way to live differently. URL Slug: first-things-first-kingdom-investing-generosity Featured Image: A wide-open pair of hands, palms up, with soft natural light—symbolizing open-handed living and surrender. Clean, warm tones suitable for church branding.

Let me ask you something honest: What if the source of so much of our anxiety isn't our circumstances—but our priorities?

I believe it with my whole heart. One of the primary reasons we are living in the most anxious generation in human history is this: we are consumed by the temporary rather than fixed on what is eternal. Jesus addressed this directly, and this past Sunday I opened a brand new series called First Things First by sitting with one of the most clarifying things he ever said:

"But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well." — Matthew 6:33

That word first is doing a lot of work. And I think most of us, if we're honest, have let it slip.

The Kingdom Operates Differently Than the World

Jesus talked about the kingdom of heaven 126 times in just the four Gospels. That kind of repetition tells me something important: the way the kingdom operates is directly opposed to the patterns, values, and practices of the world around us.

To help us understand how the kingdom works, Jesus told a parable—the Parable of the Talents, found in Matthew 25. A master goes on a journey and entrusts his servants with his property: five talents to one, two to another, one to a third. When he returns, he settles accounts. Two of the servants invested what they were given and doubled it. The master's response? "Well done, my good and faithful servant." The third buried his out of fear—and the master's response to him was sobering.

But here's what I don't want you to miss: Jesus introduced this story with these words—"Then the kingdom of heaven will be like..." This parable isn't just a lesson about money. It's a window into how the kingdom of God actually works.

Principle One: God Owns Everything

The culture we live in has a theology that sounds something like this: Everything I have is from me and it is for me. But the kingdom of God operates from a completely different foundation.

Look at Matthew 25:14—before the master gave anything to the servants, it was his property. When it was in the servants' hands, it still belonged to the master. That's the kingdom principle: everything we have belongs to God.

This is why I am so passionate about the tithe. Leviticus 27 puts it plainly:

"One-tenth of the produce of the land, whether grain from the field or fruit from the trees, belongs to the Lord and must be set apart to him as holy."

The tithe isn't just a financial transaction. It is a declaration of God's ownership. Every time we get paid and give the first tenth back to God, we are reminding ourselves: You are my provider. This was always yours.

I know the cost of life feels overwhelming for many of you right now. I see it. I get it. But the economy of heaven is not this economy—and the moment we start living like everything belongs to God, something shifts in us.

I know this personally. Years ago, our house caught fire in the middle of the night. The Holy Spirit woke my wife Cindy up, and she came and shook me awake: "Babe, our house is on fire. I'm going to get our sons. You're on your own." True story. We stood on the street at two in the morning watching our home burn to the ground. I had shorts, flip-flops, my wallet, my car keys, and my phone. That was everything I owned.

I kept waiting for the devastation to set in—and it never came. Because we had built our family on a verse from Romans 11:36:

"For from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen."

When you live like everything belongs to God, you don't sweat losing it—because it was never yours to begin with.

Principle Two: You Will Give an Account

The second kingdom principle from this parable is just as important. Matthew 25:19 says:

"Now after a long time, the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them."

You will give an account for what you did with what God gave you.

Now, I want to be clear—this is not the judgment of condemnation. Scripture is plain that we are saved by grace through faith, not by works. But the Apostle Paul describes a separate moment in Romans 14:

"We will all stand before the judgment seat of God. For the scriptures say, 'As surely as I live, says the Lord, every knee will bend to me and every tongue will declare allegiance to God. Yes, each will give a personal account to God.'"

This isn't an angry judge throwing condemnation at you. This is your Father—cheering you on, celebrating your faithfulness, saying: I gave you so much. I can't wait to see what you did with it. As Jesus says in Revelation 22: "Look, I am coming soon and my reward is with me, and I will give to each person according to what they have done."

Start Thinking Like a Kingdom Investor

When we understand that God owns everything and that we will give an account, it changes how we see every hour and every dollar. It moves us from being spenders to being investors.

Spending is trading one thing for another with no net gain. Investing is devoting something with an expectation of exponential return. You can spend time binging a show—nothing wrong with that—or you can invest that same time in God's word, which never returns void. You can spend time stressing about your kids, or you can invest that same time on your knees, praying heaven down on their lives. As Jesus said in Matthew 6:

"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and thieves break in and steal, but store for yourselves treasures in heaven... For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

Here's something I've learned: if you are waiting to feel like a generous person before you start giving, that day is not coming. It works the other way around. For where you invest, there your heart follows. You want the joy of generosity? You have to give first. The heart follows the treasure.

This Earthly Life Is a Vapor—Invest It Well

I'll close with this. When I took my boys to Mexico years ago, they exchanged all their American dollars for pesos at the airport—against my advice. We got to the resort and they spent exactly zero of it. We came home, and for the next ten years those pesos sat in their nightstands. Worth something at a place they visited briefly. Worth nothing at the country of origin.

I don't want any of us to stand before God one day having to reconcile that we obsessed over gathering things that had some value in this brief whisper of existence—but are worth nothing in eternity.

You are a ten-talent person. If you have food in your fridge and a roof over your head, you are blessed. God has placed you at a ten-talent moment in history with more opportunity to reach the lost with the gospel than any generation before us.

The only reasonable response is to hold nothing back.

My prayer for all of us is simple: God, fix our hearts on what is close to yours—on that which is eternal.

Want to go deeper on this? Watch the full message at life.church and join us next week as we continue the First Things First series. And if this message stirred something in you, share it with someone who needs to hear it—because whoever finds God finds life.

Social Media Excerpt (Facebook/Instagram): What if the source of your anxiety isn't your circumstances—but your priorities? This week, we kicked off a brand new series called First Things First, and the message was simple but life-changing: when we live like everything belongs to God, we stop sweating what was never ours to begin with. Read the full post and watch the message at the link in bio. 🙌

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