Can I Borrow That?

Jesus was a borrower.

Lest you misunderstand, I don't mean he was ever in debt. He owed no mortgage, took out no loans, carried no credit card. He didn't borrow money, but he did borrow things.

When he was born, Mary and Joseph laid him in a borrowed manger.

While a guest at a wedding, he borrowed ceremonial water-pots to hold the water he changed into wine. Once when he was thirsty, he relied on a Samaritan woman to give him a drink. To feed the hungry multitude, he used someone else's lunch: a boy's five barley loaves and two small fish. In response to a question about paying taxes to Caesar, he found an object lesson in a borrowed coin.

Before the Triumphal Entry, he sent his disciples to borrow a donkey for him to ride.

He ate the Last Supper in a borrowed room.

After he died on the cross, his friends placed his body in a borrowed tomb. (It wasn't a problem for the tomb's owner. After all, Jesus only needed to borrow it for three days.)

Jesus was a borrower—but he was no one's debtor. Most borrowers reduce the value of a product by using it, but in the hands of the Master, the value of ordinary things actually increased. Sharing a drink of water with Jesus by Sychar's well, the Samaritan woman found living water to satisfy her deepest needs. Dining with Jesus on a remote hillside, 5,000 hungry souls learned about the true bread of life. The "Last" Supper didn't spell the end of Jesus' communion with his disciples, for it gave way to an enduring feast shared around his table every Lord's Day. The borrowed tomb, now empty, points the way to everlasting life.

We are borrowers, too. We all live on borrowed time on a borrowed planet, using gifts granted to us for a while by the grace of God. Our jobs, our families, even our bodies are not ours to keep forever.

"You are not your own," the Bible says. Well, whose are we, then? We are God's! "You were bought with a price. Therefore honor God with your body" (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). And honor him with your home, your career, your money, your relationships, and your talents, for they are not yours to keep and hoard. They are yours to use for the glory of the Creator who made you.

Even the righteousness that gets us into Heaven is not our own; it's the righteousness we "borrow" from the sinless Son of God. "For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God" (1 Peter 3:18).

Rick Rusaw ministers with LifeBridge Christian Church in Longmont, Colorado. I like the title of his new book, Living a Life on Loan (Standard, 2006). When we understand that our lives are on loan from God, Rick says, we will "choose the window seat, not the aisle." Our churches will develop community partnerships that build wells, not walls.

We can never repay the Lord for all he's done, but we can invest our resources in his kingdom—with interest compounding daily.