As the stock markets (and local markets and gas stations) continue to ride the financial roller coaster, and as public perception about our nation grows more nervous, people are naturally clutching life a bit more tightly these days. Travel, investments, home and car sales, and just about everything else is down a bit because people are afraid to let dollars go. Either we’ve already felt the crunch of Wall Street crashing on our investments, or we’re holding our breath, waiting to see if the financial dooms-day that the media and Congress speaks of will arrive.
Here in Houston suburbia, where gripping the stuff of material comfort is a way of life, we’re now tempted to hold on tighter than ever. But I’ve been asking myself a question lately:
When my finances are tight, how often is it because I gave so much to ministry? Ever?
This is not about guilt. It’s about freedom. It’s about life in the kingdom of light as an adopted child of the living God. Why should my soul be downcast over the loss of money or the decrease in my ability to spend as days gone by? It doesn’t really matter how much money I have. It makes a difference of course, temporally. My Redeemer was a homeless man with friends that stole from him what little he did have and others who completely took for granted every generous act he did. Should I be so concerned about my investments? Or let me ask it this way
Why should ANYTHING that happens to my finances keep me from giving GENEROUSLY to the work of God? To the elderly, the orphaned, the prisoner, the outcast, the rejected, and to support those who labor in ministry?
Almost 2,000 years ago a man who Jesus himself sent to start churches wrote a letter to a church that was young and struggling with all kinds of junk. In that letter he encouraged the believers in that church to give generously out of whatever they had, much or little. He urged them to care for Christians in need and to be a blessing to all. Here’s what he said:
We want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia, for in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. For they gave according to their means, as I can testify, and beyond their means, of their own accord, begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints— and this, not as we expected, but they gave themselves first to the Lord and then by the will of God to us. Accordingly, we urged Titus that as he had started, so he should complete among you this act of grace. But as you excel in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in all earnestness, and in our love for you — see that you excel in this act of grace also.
I say this not as a command, but to prove by the earnestness of others that your love also is genuine. For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich. And in this matter I give my judgment: this benefits you, who a year ago started not only to do this work but also to desire to do it. So now finish doing it as well, so that your readiness in desiring it may be matched by your completing it out of what you have. For if the readiness is there, it is acceptable according to what a person has, not according to what he does not have. For I do not mean that others should be eased and you burdened, but that as a matter of fairness your abundance at the present time should supply their need, so that their abundance may supply your need, that there may be fairness. As it is written, “Whoever gathered much had nothing left over, and whoever gathered little had no lack.”
Christians in American have for a long time been in an almost unique position to give abundantly to the needs and work being done local and abroad. There will likely come a day when we no longer have the ability to do so much for so many. I’m not a doom and gloomer, but I try to be a good student of history and as far as I can tell no empire has escaped extinction. Every great ruling society in history came to an end at some point. I pray that will not be the case for the US for another 200+ years. But we need to live and give in light of the opportunities we have now.
When you consider all you’ve ever earned and owned versus all you’ve ever given and sacrificed to uplift another, how do you fare? I fail miserably.
I’m working hard, daily, to allow the Lord to change me and reshape the core of who I am to include generosity. So this year, what if you tell your family and friends that the best gift they can give you, is to give to someone else…somone or some ministry in need?
Jesus the Messiah offers the ultimate gift of grace by faith unto salvation, forgiveness of sin and reunion with our loving Creator. I want to reflect that to others far more than trying to slake my unending lust for “things”.
