No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had. – Acts 4:32

“That’s mine! You can’t have it! Leave it alone!” Or, “He’s not playing fair!” Many parents have heard words like that so often that they never want to hear them again. At work you hear: “He took my idea and used it as his own.” “That was supposed to be my promotion.” “Why doesn’t anyone recognize my loyalty to this company?”

The concern about me and what’s mine seems to be present at every stage of life. Some stages may be more filled with it than others, but the general thought is still the same. You have to fight to hold on to what you have. You have to fight to get what you deserve.

The early Christians spoken about in our reading didn’t think that way. In fact, they didn’t claim anything as their own. Those believers did not find it necessary to talk much, if at all, about their own possessions. Possessions were not that important to them.

Why? The first reason is that these believers realized that everything they had was God’s, not theirs. They didn’t think about possessions as belonging to this person or that person. Everything belonged to God. Each one of them was only a manager of God’s possessions.

Think of that. What you have is not yours. It’s God’s and you are the manager. One person manages one particular group of things and other people manage other things. Having that understanding can change your point of view about possessions dramatically.

Another reason why the early Christians didn’t consider their possessions to be their own was that they were learning, as all of us are, that we use our possessions only for a short time. What we possess now must be viewed in the perspective of our eternal glory of heaven. Our lives here and now are only a short step in our unending journey. Everything comes from God, and he has even better things, even more valuable things, in store for us. Heaven awaits. This fact teaches us to place the right amount of value on what God has given us to use here on earth.