I love sardonic (and yes, sometimes even sarcastic) humor.  If you’re the praying kind (and I sincerely hope you are), you can pray that God will conform my sense of humor to His.  But for those of you who’ve never heard of it, I commend to you www.despair.com.  The site is filled with things that just crack me up.  One of their greatest products is something they call “Bittersweets,”  candy hearts like those you see in the store for V-day, but with one important hitch:  they’re definitely not to tell someone you love them.  With messages like, “Aging Poorly,” “Dog is Cuter,” and “Settle For Less,” no one is hoping that these candies appear as a gift for them this Valentine’s Day.

But today, as I scanned the news, I went back to the candy heart with the message “Be Mine,” and it led to me something else I’d like for you to consider, briefly, today.

In the book of Acts, in 4:32-35, Luke gives us a picture of the early church:

³²All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had. ³³With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all. ³⁴There were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales ³⁵and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need.

This passage has been talked about over and over as justification for whether or not Christians should be capitalists or communists or something in between.  I’d like to point to something different today.  I want to talk about the difference between owning and possessing.  I want to suggest to you that the primary difference comes down to two things:

1. Use of the possessive pronoun. (My, mine, yours, ours, etc)
2. Permanence in the mind of the possesser. (e.g. “This is mine and will be until I decide otherwise.”)

One sign of a Christian who understands the rule of Christ over their life is the extent to which they use the possessive pronoun “my.”  Ultimately, as C.S. Lewis says, there are only two beings in the universe who can rightly say “mine” about anything:  God and Satan.  Everything which Satan cannot lay claim to belongs to God.  What Satan can lay legitimate claim to boils down to one limited group of things:  those things which will not let God serve as their owner.  I’ll leave the implications of that statement to you, as that’s not my primary focus today, but I do want to say one important thing about this before I move on:  as a Christian, you have verified God’s claim on you and everything you have.  (Note I did not say, “…and everything you OWN.)

Jesus’ famous comments about serving God or money (Luke 16:1-15, and Matthew 19:16-30) both include one important teaching.  Jesus doesn’t say in either place that there is anything wrong with possessions.  The problem with possessions is that they often possess the possessor, as Ravi Zacharias frequently notes.   This boils down to a problem of understanding ownership.  If you are a disciple of Jesus Christ, it should be your goal to avoid, as much as possible, using the first person possessive pronoun “my,” especially if you are the kind of person who has difficulty as seeing everything you are given as a trust from God, to be used for His kingdom.  The only way to be truly sure that you’re not possessed with your possessions is to be legitimately willing to renounce them all.  You need not go as far as taking the vow of poverty that is demanded by the Catholic church for those who enter their mendicant orders, you need only be prepared to take anything God has placed in your hands and use it for whatever purposes God deems.

I’d like to propose a challenge to you as a reader of this blog:  start paying attention to how often you claim ownership of the things in your life:  your relationships, your property, your time.  Not every time you use a possessive pronoun necessarily means that you are claiming eternal ownership of the thing you’re talking about, but it will be a helpful exercise as you understand how serious the problem might be.  In the early church, according to the passage from Acts 4 above, no one considered anything they had as “theirs.”  It’s a lofty goal.   As Christians we want to be people who take the view of our possessions as things we have, not things we own, as we want to be people who see everything we have as both a gift from God, but also as coming with a responsibility to use them for His kingdom,  not ours.

In case of life, see your possessions as temporary and His.  You’ll be more gracious, more joyful, and more ready to help others.