"It is More Blessed to Give Than Receive" - Acts 20:35

Here is the proof for this verse.  Fascinating stuff.

People who ask, “How much do I have to give?” don’t get it.

J.D. Greear:

I am often asked how much Christians should give. Some who ask this are looking for wisdom, but many are looking for an out. They want to know how much is enough to get God off their backs, to fulfill their duty. And that attitude is miles away from the gospel. 

Gospel giving is about love, not law. It’s not about percentages, but about a person. Zacchaeus throws out some numbers, but not because Jesus gives him the benchmark first. He does it out of sheer joy, as a love offering to God. 

A lot of people who ask, “How much do I have to give?” labor under the delusion that God needs their money. In their minds, God is like the government, endlessly low on funds and constantly seeking more funding. But God doesn’t need our cash. 

That’s why 2 Corinthians 9:7 says that God loves a cheerful giver. If God had needs, he wouldn’t care why you gave; he would only care that you gave. I’ve never gotten a letter from the IRS saying, “Yes, you paid the legal amount, but we sense that it wasn’t joyful giving. We’re concerned about your motives.” No, the IRS needs money, so that’s their bottom line. 

But (thankfully) God isn’t like the IRS. God loves cheerful giving because gospel giving is primarily about worship and joy, not meeting needs. I have heard it said that God measures our generosity not by the size of our gifts, but by the size of our sacrifice, because sacrifice expresses the affections of our heart to God. 

And if we find ourselves growing stingy and fearful once again, the answer is not to try harder. The answer is to look back at the cross, where God was lavishly generous with us. Because those people who truly experience the gospel become like the gospel—overflowing with grace.

Read the rest.


Books by J.D. Greear:

• Stop Asking Jesus Into Your Heart: How to Know for Sure You Are Saved
• Gospel: Recovering the Power that Made Christianity Revolutionary
• Breaking the Islam Code: Understanding the Soul Questions of Every Muslim

The Preachers of LA: How Much Should A Preacher Make?

Interesting post here from Bryan Loritts.  I wish this issue was straightforward and simple.  Unfortunately, it's not.

Care for the Socially Vulnerable in the Early Church—Aristides (2nd century)

BibleMesh Blog:

Aristides of Athens was a second-century Christian author who wrote an apology addressed to the pagan Roman emperor Hadrian (or Antoninus Pius). The purpose of Aristides’s treatise was to defend the Christian faith against false accusations during the time when the Roman government persecuted Christians. Among other things, Aristides argues that the Christian moral code surpasses the highest ethical ideals of pagan philosophers, especially as manifested by the Church’s concern for the poor and socially vulnerable.

They [Christians] help those who offend them, making friends of them; do good to their enemies. They don’t adore idols; they are kind, good, modest, sincere, they love one another; don’t despise widows; protect the orphans; those who have much give without grumbling, to those in need. When they meet strangers, they invite them to their homes with joy, for they recognize them as true brothers, not natural but spiritual. 

When a poor man dies, if they become aware, they contribute according to their means for his funeral; if they come to know that some people are persecuted or sent to prison or condemned for the sake of Christ’s name, they put their alms together and send them to those in need. If they can do it, they try to obtain their release. When a slave or a beggar is in need of help, they fast two or three days, and give him the food they had prepared for themselves, because they think that he too should be joyful, as he has been called to be joyful like themselves.[i]

Kindness

Powerful video.

It's Not About The Money

Michael Kelley:

...let’s just say that you are a Christian who customarily gives to your church the first 10 percent of your paycheck. But then the economy goes south, or you acquire some unexpected medical bills. Or maybe you just take a hard look at the checkbook and realize how much more you could have socked away if you didn’t give that full 10 percent. So you are tempted to cut back. You justify it by saying that it’s not that you won’t ever tithe again— you’re just taking a few months off to get your feet under you. And isn’t it sort of legalistic to have to write this check every month anyway? And doesn’t God care about taking care of our families? That money could certainly be used to help them. Those are some of the things I have told myself, at least. 

But all those excuses focus on a side issue. Tithing isn’t really about the money. Just like most things in the Christian life, tithing has little to do with the actual, physical act and much more to do with the spiritual significance behind that act. Tithing has very little to do with money, and very much to do with faith. When we make the conscious choice to regularly and sacrificially give, we show that we aren’t just giving lip service to God’s power to provide and His goodness in doing so. Our faith is measured by our actions. 

I believe that to continue to tithe—to be generous and giving even when you feel like you can’t afford it—is an act of faith. It is a statement by action that I believe God can be trusted. He told me to do this, and so I will do it because I believe He is wise and loving in what He commands. 

I will tithe also because I believe in God’s power to provide. There’s a lot that I could do with that money; and sometimes I feel like giving it away puts me in a position of need. That’s not a position I’m comfortable with, but that is a position where I must receive from God. Not a bad place to be. 

And I will tithe because I believe that God Himself is better than any of the stuff I could get with that money. It’s an act of faith to choose God over comfort because, well, He’s invisible. So I give away the money that could be used to make me more comfortable because I believe that God is better than any of those things. 

We give because we trust. When we don’t give, it’s because we don’t trust. Our wallets reveal, much more clearly than our words, the depth of our faith. Our faith is shown clearly in our common, ordinary expenditures…

Read the rest by getting the book.  Only $4.99 on Kindle app!

True.

adam4d.com

Taking Joy in the Joy of Others

What happens when you leave a $200 tip?  Watch below.  Giving is way more fun than being selfish.

Your Heart Will Follow Your Money

Suppose you buy shares of General Motors. What happens? You suddenly develop interest in GM. You check the financial pages. You see a magazine article about GM and read every word, even though a month ago you would have passed right over it. 

Suppose you’re giving to help African children with AIDS. When you see an article on the subject, you’re hooked. If you’re sending money to plant churches in India and an earthquake hits India, you watch the news and fervently pray. 

As surely as the compass needle follows north, your heart will follow your treasure. Money leads; hearts follow. 

I’ve heard people say, “I want more of a heart for missions.” I always respond, “Jesus tells you exactly how to get it. Put your money in missions—and in your church and the poor—and your heart will follow”

- Randy Alcorn, The Treasure Principle, p.44

Should You Talk About Your Giving Habits?

Books by Randy Alcorn:

• Heaven
• If God Is Good: Faith in the Midst of Suffering and Evil
• Money, Possessions, and Eternity
• The Treasure Principle: Unlocking the Secret of Joyful Giving (LifeChange Books)
• Heaven for Kids
• Safely Home

I Don't Even Come in Second!

Watch the way Jesus walks through the kingdom.  He is always moving toward the marginalized, the physically broken, the oppressed, and the poor.  We already know that the rich are reluctant to believe in Jesus because they know it will cost them.  Jesus and his followers prefer those who can never help us get a better job or increase the church budget. 

Just when your storehouses had enough for tomorrow, you notice some desperate needs around you.  The King is close enough to put his hand into your pocketbook and, for most Westerners, that is far too intrusive and impolite.  "Go ahead and require public niceness and regular attendance at church, Lord, but remember that my money is my own!"  

We get the impression that the Father prefers to keep us on the edge.  This is what got us worried in the first place!  His plan is to liberate us from our defensive, hoarding, tight-fisted, miserly ways, and to teach us that when we have been given the kingdom - the kingdom! - stinginess is unnatural and unbecoming.  We might prefer a different strategy, but if God is molding us to be chips off the old block, his strategy makes sense.  It is exactly what we need, because our greatest need is to be what we were intended to be - to be like him.  

So, the Kingdom is God's and God targets the needs of those who have less than we do.  In other words, not only is the kingdom about God, and not me, I don't even come in second!  I am to consider others more important than myself in the kingdom.  This seems like too much to ask until the King calls us his treasured possession (Ex. 19:5).  He is seeking my allegiance with love, not with force and power.  The reason we are called to lay up our treasures in heaven is because we are his treasure.  When you are confident that you are the Father's treasured possession, you are also confident that his loving care will continue forever.  Building warehouses is a waste of time and space.  His gifts to you become things you want to give him back in gratitude.  Then he give you even more.

- Ed Welch, Running Scared: Fear, Worry & the God of Rest, p.  133, 134

The Connection Between Worry and Giving

One way to test our kingdom allegiances is to look at our budget.  For example, do you tithe?  Do you freely give ten percent of your income to God's work in its many forms?  That was the Old Testament guideline.  And when we get to the New Testament, when the riches of the kingdom are unveiled, Jesus invited people to give God everything:  "Sell your possession and give to the poor.  Provide purses for yourself that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys" (Luke 12:33). 

If you don't tithe, your faith is more than likely small.  You hoard because you don't believe the Father is generous.  You don't share in the king's heart of self-sacrifice.  As a result, worry and fear will be an uneasy undercurrent in your life. 

Tithing, of course, is not the central issue in the kingdom.  The kingdom is first about what God gives, not what we give.  Giving is merely our response to his ongoing generosity.  We already know that his generosity to us is boundless - it is the kingdom itself (Luke 12:32).  But what is this kingdom that he is giving us? 

The answer, like his promises to us, is a list that is endless.  He gives forgiveness, reconciliation, love, power, meaning. purpose, sanctification, glorification, peace, and more.  But all the gifts of the kingdom are gathered together in Jesus the King.

- Ed Welch, Running Scared: Fear, Worry & the God of Rest, p. 121, 122

"Like the frog that boiled to death by degrees..."

Like the frog that boiled to death by degrees, we tend to gradually acclimate to our materialism, becoming desensitized to it, and finally regarding it as the norm rather than an aberration. The hardest part of dealing with out materialism is that it has become so much a part of us.  Like people who have lived in darkness for years, we have been removed from the light so long we do not know how dark it really is.  Many of us have never known what it is not to be materialistic.  It is normal, the only way we know.  This is why we need so desperately to read the Scriptures, to grapple with these issues, bring them to God in prayer, discuss them with our brothers and sisters, and look for and learn from those rare models of nonmaterialistic living in our Christian communities. I’m convinced that if we were to gain God’s perspective, even for a moment, and were to look at the way we go through life accumulating and hoarding and displaying things, we would have the same feelings of horror and pity that any sane person has when he views people in a mental asylum endlessly beating their heads against the wall.

- Randy Alcorn, Money, Possessions, and Eternity, p. 60

C.S. Lewis on Sacrificial Giving

“I do not believe one can settle on how much we ought to give. I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare. In other words, if our expenditure on comforts, luxuries, amusements, etc., is up to the standard common among those with the same income as our own, we are probably giving away too little. If our charities do not at all pinch or hamper us, I should say they are too small. There ought to be things we should like to do and cannot do because our charitable expenditure excludes them."

– C.S. Lewis

Stop asking the wrong question

Guest post by Aaron Armstrong

Sometimes when I look at the world's problems—especially the problem of poverty and the need to care for the poor—I find myself asking the question, “Am I doing enough?” But in my study of the Scriptures, I’ve come to the conclusion that this may not be the right question. In fact, it might be exactly the wrong one. Here's what I mean:

“Doing enough” can be overly simplistic. One problem with “doing enough” is that it tends to focus us on the wrong goal. We pick a dollar amount, or an income percentage, or a number of hours per month. We construct a set of checkboxes to see if we’re meeting the output criteria we have set for ourselves. Some suggest, for example, that if we all give just one percent more financially, global poverty can be wiped out forever. All we have to do, they say, is track the progress, allocate the resources, and we’re set.

When “doing enough” becomes primarily a matter of numbers, we can be sure we are focusing on the wrong thing. Alleviating poverty is about more than a certain amount of giving, whether of time or money.

“Doing enough” is legalism. Worse, this “doing enough” mindset is textbook legalism—the effort to be pleasing to God through our external behavior. And encouraging people to be active in helping the poor can promote legalism like few other activities. Unless God cuts someone to the heart and instills a compassion for the poor, exhortations to “choose your fast” or “just give more money” either will be ignored or will feed one’s “inner legalist.”

If our focus is whether we are doing “enough,” it may be that our hearts are as dead as those to whom Isaiah, Amos, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel preached. “We have all become like one who is unclean,” Isaiah said, “and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment" (Isaiah 64:6).

(From Awaiting a Savior: The Gospel, the New Creation and the End of Poverty, pp. 58-59)

Lavish Generosity

 

 From the original poster:

So my mom and I have been working the same waitress job for 5-6 years now. She had been waitressing years before, but this is recently. Anyway, about… 15 minutes ago this guy she waited on left and told her to take care. Just that. Prior to this she had talked to him about Italy. Her people are from Florence, this and that, and she said she's never been. She's got 8 years of art education and she's working a waitress job. It's pretty… Sad and disappointing, I guess. Her and my father divorced 6 years ago and she hasn't had a real job ever. Just been stuck in a small town she's not from. This man who we have never seen before tipped her 1000 dollars for a trip to Italy. Walked out, not another word.

(source)

Christians Who Tithe Have Healthier Finances Than Those Who Don't

The Christian Post:

There are an estimated 10 million Christians in the U.S. who tithe more than $50 billion annually, according to a press release for the annual State of the Plate report. The report encompasses survey responses from 4,413 tithers from all 50 states and a variety of different churches and income levels. The fifth annual study reveals that 97 percent of tithers make giving to their local church a priority, and 63 percent started tithing between their childhood and their twenties. It also found that 70 percent give based on their gross income rather than their net income, and 77 percent give more than the traditional 10 percent. 

Read the rest.

"Like the frog that boiled to death by degrees..."

Like the frog that boiled to death by degrees, we tend to gradually acclimate to our materialism, becoming desensitized to it, and finally regarding it as the norm rather than an aberration. The hardest part of dealing with out materialism is that it has become so much a part of us.  Like people who have lived in darkness for years, we have been removed from the light so long we do not know how dark it really is.  Many of us have never known what it is not to be materialistic.  It is normal, the only way we know.  This is why we need so desperately to read the Scriptures, to grapple with these issues, bring them to God in prayer, discuss them with our brothers and sisters, and look for and learn from those rare models of nonmaterialistic living in our Christian communities. I’m convinced that if we were to gain God’s perspective, even for a moment, and were to look at the way we go through life accumulating and hoarding and displaying things, we would have the same feelings of horror and pity that any sane person has when he views people in a mental asylum endlessly beating their heads against the wall.

- Randy Alcorn, Money, Possessions, and Eternity, p. 60

Do We Give at Christmas Like God Gives?

Miroslav Volf:

Consider the true gift we celebrate at Christmas, God’s advent into the world. Here is how the apostle Paul told the story of Christmas: “For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich” (2 Corinthians 8:9). The Son of God did not dwell among humans just to open our vista onto the circle of blissful exchanges within the Godhead. He divested himself of heavenly wealth and became an impoverished child so the fragile flesh of humanity could be taken up into God’s embrace. The circle of the Eternal Intimates opened up, and gifts traversed its boundaries to reach those in need.

Our gifts [at Christmas] shouldn’t just travel on a two-way street so givers and receivers can delight in one another; they should travel on a one-way street so that the needy may be helped, being imparted to those who may not be able to give in return.

At Christmas we should celebrate two kinds of gift giving, not just one. Christmas should be a feast of reciprocal giving in a circle of intimates, a provisional enactment of the advent of God’s future world. But it should also be a feast of giving to those outside the circle, a small contribution helping to align the world of sin and need with the coming world of love. The advent of the light into the darkness of the world is not the goal; it is part of the movement toward the goal. At Christmas we celebrate this movement. Gifts should therefore chiefly flow out to the needy; they shouldn’t largely circulate among friends.  (Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace, 75).

(HT:  Dan Cruver)

Generosity & Contentment

Gospel Centered Discipleship has posted one of my articles on their site today.  You might want to click over and give it a read.

The danger of wealth has been a prominent theme in the teaching of several pastors in recent years. John Piper’s chapter on money in Desiring God has shaped me and many others to a great degree. More recently, authors David Platt and Francis Chan have championed a similar message with their books Radical and Crazy Love.

Their message has met considerable resistance with counter warnings against embracing a “poverty theology.” Should we not rejoice in what God has given? Shouldn’t we want to take care of our families and provide for them? Shouldn’t pastors be paid well so their wives don’t have to work and they are not continually stressed out with financial pressure?

I’m afraid the framing of this discussion leads us to ask the wrong questions. Like the junior high boy who wonders “how far is too far” with his girlfriend, we are quickly caught up in questions about how rich is too rich, how poor is too poor, and the like. Where is the line? Do I feel guilty for having too much? Do the kids have enough? What does “enough” even mean? Should I feel guilty about not giving as much as so-and-so? If I give more, does that mean I am more spiritual? The hamster wheel of comparison, propelled by our spring-loaded legalism, keeps spinning unto exhaustion. We are all tempted to be prideful about what we give or feel guilty about what we don’t. Neither response befits the gospel, which crushes pride and erases guilt.

Still, the question remains: how should we handle money?

Read the rest.