Archive for June, 2010

“Everything we have in life is a gift from God, and we are so thankful for all He has provided in terms of relationships (each other, family, friends, ministry partners, etc), practical needs (a home, food, clothing, etc), and opportunities (each hour and day, ministry roles, learning moments, etc). God is so good.

Since everything we have in life is a gift from God, He has called us to be good stewards of it all, to use it all for His glory. In light of this please pray for us as we adjust to using well what God has given us here, especially in regards to time and how we use the hours of each day God allows us to be here. It can be so easy for a day to pass and not be certain one has used it as God intended, pray that we would have certainty of what God wants of us in each day.”

Peter and Katrina Goehring, a young missionary couple in Africa, prayer post on June 29, 2010.

“Lord, we have so much. Most of us have food, shelter, people who love us, jobs, nice clothes to wear, safety, and opportunities for growth and development. Help us to use our position of relative luxury to meet the needs of those less fortunate, Amen”
Milana McLead in Beat Poverty: We’ve God What it Takes (Federal Way, WA: World Vision 2008) 3.

“Generosity happens when a person is living from a condition of abundance or when a person is moved by the needs of others. If I have three hundred tomatoes, it is easy for me to give dozens away. I have more than I need. I am giving out of my surplus…

But I can also be generous even when I have little. I may have only one tomato, but if I see a poor woman who has none, I may very well be moved to give my last tomato to her.

Generosity then flows from either a sense of abundance or a feeling of compassion. God is moved by both. God is generous because he lives in a condition of abundance–his provisions can never be exhausted–and God is moved because he sees our need.
So why do we seldom live generously?

We live from a condition of scarcity. We never got enough love from our parents, enough toys on our birthday and enough affirmation from those who know us. Our checking account is limited and often our money is spent before we earn it. Living from a condition of scarcity, we learn that we must protect what we have. If we give it away we might end up in dire straits.”

James Bryan Smith in The God and Beautiful God: Falling in Love with the God Jesus Knows (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2009) 84-85.

Vice: Envy
Petition: Your Kingdom Come
Gift: Piety
Virtue: Meekness / Generous Kindness
Beatitude: Inherit the Earth

And he who prays, “let your kingdom come” “asks for the common salvation of all.” He receives, accordingly, “the spirit of piety” which “enkindles generous kindness in him,” so that he himself arrives at the same possession of eternal inheritance which he desires his neighbor to achieve.” These first two rungs illustrate this pattern: each petition is for a gift; each gift produces in the soul a virtue that supplants the corresponding vice and so paves the way for the accompanying beatitude.

Material from Jeffrey P. Greenman, Timothy Larsen and Stephen R. Spencer, editors, The Sermon on the Mount: Through the Centuries from the Early Church to John Paul II (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2007) 73.

“Whoever leaves treasure lacks. Whoever departs from wisdom is stupefied. It was fitting that he [the Lost Son] began to be in need, because he abandoned the treasures of wisdom and the knowledge of God and the depths of heavenly riches. He began to want and to suffer starvation, because nothing is enough for prodigal enjoyment. He who does not know how to be filled with eternal nourishment always suffers starvation…Let us not fear because we have squandered the inheritance of spiritual dignity that we received on earthly pleasures. Do not fear that perhaps he will not receive you for the Lord has no pleasure in the destruction of the living…He who hears you pondering in the secret places of the mind runs to you. When you are still far away, he sees you and runs to you.”

St. Ambrose in Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture ed. Thomas Oden (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2003), p. 243-252, cf. Luke 15:11-32 –

“The price of the soul is faith. Faith is the lost drachma that the woman in the Gospel seeks diligently. We read that she lit a candle and swept her house. After finding it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, inviting them to rejoice with her because she has found the drachma she had lost.”

St. Ambrose in Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture ed. Thomas Oden (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2003) 245.

“Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Does she not light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.’ In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” Luke 15:8-10

“The damage to the soul is great if one has lost the faith. Light your lamp. Your lamp is the eye, that is, the interior eye of your soul. Light the lamp that feeds on the oil of the spirit and shines through your whole house. Search for the drachma, the redemption of your soul. If a person loses this, he is troubled, and if he finds it, he rejoices.”

St. Ambrose in Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, 245.

Over the next three days, while I am on spiritual retreat in the mountains with my son, I invite you consider the generosity of God as reflected in the three parables of Luke 15: the Lost Sheep, the Lost Coin and the Lost Son. St. Ambrose (c. 337-397) will join you on your journey of reflection.

“St. Luke did not idly present three parables in a row. Buy the parables of the sheep that strayed and ways found, the coin which was lost and was found, and the son who was dead and came to life, we may cure our wounds, being encouraged by a threefold remedy.”

St. Ambrose in Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture ed. Thomas Oden (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2003) 243.

Now the tax collectors and “sinners” were all gathering around to hear him. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” Then Jesus told them this parable: “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent. Luke 15:1-7

“Let us rejoice that the sheep that had strayed in Adam is lifted on Christ. The shoulders of Christ are the arms of the cross. There, I laid down my sins. I rested on the neck of that noble yoke. The sheep is one in kind, not in appearance, because we are all one body but many members. The Son of man came to seek and save what was lost.”

St. Ambrose in Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, 244.

“In the passage where the New Testament says that everyone must work, it gives as a reason “in order that he may have something to give to those in need” (Eph. 4:28). Charity giving to the poor is an essential part of morality: in the frightening parable of the sheep and the goats (cf. Mt. 25:31-46) it seems to be the point on which everything turns. Some people nowadays say that charity ought to be unnecessary and that instead of giving to the poor we ought to be producing a society in which there were no poor to give to. They might be quite right in saying we ought to produce this kind of society. But if anyone thinks that, as a consequence, you can stop giving in the meantime, then he has parted company with all Christian morality. 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.”

C.S. Lewis in “Social Morality” from C.S. Lewis Essay Collection and Other Short Pieces, ed. Lesley Walmsley (London: HarperCollins, 2000).

“Healthy stewardship spirituality begins with an understanding of grace; continues with a response of gratitude, includes commitments to prayer, meditation, and sacrifice; and ends with a life full of commitment and joy.”

Theodore Roosevelt Malloch in Being Generous (West Conshohocken, PA: Templeton Press, 2009) 48.

“The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is sound, your whole body will be full of light; but if your eye is not sound, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness. No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. Matthew 6:22-24

“Jesus gives them the parable of the single eye. From single we move to sincere, sound and finally generous. The man who fixes his eyes on God (heaven), will give generously without second thought. The man who tries to look at God and the world at the same time will see neither clearly; in fact he will not see at all.”

F.F. Bruce in The International Standard Bible Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1979) 1128.