Who Owns What You Own?

Introduction

Last Sunday, more than one hundred million people watched the Super Bowl. They knew who was winning based on a scoreboard.. Every touchdown, every extra point, and every field goal was added and accounted for. The scoreboard provided clarity.

But life does not come with a stadium screen suspended above it.

There is no flashing number announcing whether your marriage is thriving, whether your soul is steady, whether your ambitions are aligned with eternity. And yet, consciously or unconsciously, every one of us keeps score. We total something. We count something. We measure something. And whatever we measure becomes the quiet judge of our worth.

The Old Testament makes this visible. When Scripture introduces Job, it tells us not only that he was blameless and upright, but that he possessed seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, five hundred donkeys, and a large number of servants. Abraham’s wealth is cataloged in livestock, silver, and gold. In the ancient world, possessions were evidence of wealth. They testified to blessing, status, and stability. Livestock was a scoreboard.

And then, in Exodus 9, God strikes the livestock of Egypt. The possessions in the field—horses, donkeys, camels, cattle, sheep, goats—fall under divine judgment. Yet the livestock of Israel is spared. The text emphasizes differentiation. God makes a distinction between what belongs to Egypt and what belongs to His covenant people.

The question beneath the plague is not agricultural. It is theological.

Investigator

What are you secretly counting to measure your worth?

It is easy to speak about money as though it is a neutral tool, but Scripture refuses to let it remain neutral for long. Wealth attaches itself to performance. Performance becomes the measure of success. Success quietly becomes the foundation of self-worth. And before we recognize what has happened, our identity has fused with our productivity.

We rename it “net worth,” but the phrase betrays us. The language suggests that what we own can quantify what we are worth. Real estate portfolios, retirement accounts, investment returns, automobiles, clothing, jewelry become our modern livestock. They graze in digital pastures, rising and falling with markets and moods.

But Exodus forces a harder question: what happens when God touches the field?

The Egyptians discovered that their gods could not protect what they possessed. Their wealth could not defend itself. Their systems could not resist divine decree. Meanwhile, Israel’s livestock remained intact because Israel was covenantally guarded, not because Israel was economically superior.

The difference was not ownership. The difference was allegiance.

That is why the New Testament treats possessions with such seriousness. In Acts 4, believers are described as holding their property loosely because their identity was anchored elsewhere. Barnabas sold a field and laid the proceeds at the apostles’ feet. Ananias sold property as well, but his sin was not partial retention; it was pretension. He desired the image of surrender without the reality of surrender.

The issue was never currency. It was identity.

Consider the contrast between the rich young ruler and Zacchaeus. One walks away sorrowful because his possessions defined him. The other stood in joyful repentance, offering restitution and generosity because his encounter with Christ had reordered his scoreboard.

So the question presses us: is my life grounded in what I can produce, or in who I am as a child of God?

John writes, Do not love the world or anything in the world. He warns that the boasting of what one has and does is not from the Father. The world and its desires pass away. The will of God remains. Scripture consistently dismantles the illusion that possessions can secure permanence.

And yet, the tension remains for believers. God sends rain on the just and the unjust. Faith does not function as an insurance policy against economic volatility. Christians lose jobs. Investments decline. Markets collapse. Barns empty.

God protected Israel’s livestock in that plague, but He did not promise perpetual insulation from loss. Job himself, introduced as wealthy and righteous, eventually lost everything before restoration. The biblical witness is not simplistic prosperity; it is sovereign providence.

Everything belongs to God.

What we call “mine” has always been His. We are stewards, not owners. The danger emerges when stewardship mutates into trust. When we begin to rely on what is in the barn rather than on the One who filled the barn, idolatry has already taken root.

Greed is not merely the desire for more; it is the transfer of security from God to acquisition. Ambition can glorify God when it seeks excellence for service. Greed dethrones God when it seeks accumulation for identity.

So how should Christians apply this?

We are not commanded to recklessly discard all provision for future needs, nor are we permitted to sanctify hoarding under the banner of prudence. Generosity does not create self-worth, and sacrifice does not purchase righteousness. Even our giving can become another scoreboard if we subtly measure ourselves by our philanthropy.

The deeper work is internal. We must disentangle our identity from our inventory.

Do we truly believe 1 Timothy 6:9–10, that the love of money pierces the soul with many griefs? Or do we assume that warning applies to someone wealthier than we are?

The plague of livestock reminds us that God controls possessions. He can preserve them. He can remove them. He can multiply them. He can reduce them.

A godly person with no possessions is richer than an ungodly person with vast wealth because eternal inheritance is not indexed to market value.

The scoreboard that matters is not displayed in quarterly reports but written in covenant faithfulness.

So ask yourself honestly this week:

If everything in the field were touched — if accounts thinned, assets diminished, plans delayed — would your identity remain intact?

Do not trust what is in the barn. Trust the One who filled it.

Closing Reflection

The world audits your portfolio. The kingdom examines your heart. The world applauds what you accumulate. The kingdom exposes what you adore. The world asks, “How much do you have?” The kingdom asks, “To Whom do you belong?”

Examine your scoreboard.

You might need to reset it.

Have a fantastic week ahead! 

Greg