Here’s the lesson: Use your worldly resources to benefit others and make friends. Then, when your earthly possessions are gone, they will welcome you to an eternal home. Luke 16:9
“He said, “Make for yourselves friends of the unrighteous mammon: that when it has failed, they may receive you into eternal tabernacles.” But as being God by nature, He well knew the slothfulness of the human mind in every earnest and good work. It escaped not His knowledge, that men, in their greediness after wealth, giving up their mind to the love of lucre, and being tyrannized over by this passion, become hard-hearted and unsympathizing with affliction, and show no kindness whatsoever to the poor, even though they have heaped up much wealth in their stores…
But this was not God’s purpose in permitting us to possess wealth. If therefore we are unfaithful in the little, by not conforming ourselves to the will of God, and bestow the best portion of ourselves upon our pleasures and our boasts, how can we receive from Him that which is true? And what is this? The abundant bestowal of those divine gifts which adorn man’s soul, and form in it a godlike beauty. This is the spiritual wealth, not that fattens the flesh, which is held by death, but rather that saves the soul, and makes it worthy of emulation, and honorable before God, and that wins for it true praises.
It is our duty therefore to be faithful unto God, pure in heart, merciful and kind, just and holy: for these things imprint in us the outlines of the divine likeness, and perfect us as heirs of eternal life. And this then is that which is true…Let such of us then as possess earthly wealth open our hearts to those who are in need; let us show ourselves faithful and obedient to the laws of God, and followers of our Lord’s will in those things which are from without, and not our own, that we may receive that which is our own, even that holy and admirable beauty which God forms in the souls of men, fashioning them like unto Himself, according to what we originally were.”
Cyril of Alexandria (376-444) in Commentary on St. Luke, volume 2, sermon CIX (From the Syriac. MS.12,154) 113. The photo above is the of the retreat center where my meetings have been held. I chose this Bible passage this morning as it is the text I will preach from this Sunday evening at a church in Alexandria.
Doctor Cyril provides the starting point for living generously. It starts with open hearts to those in need. When we “open our hearts” the faithful and obedient giving follows. And it’s God’s design for our lives. When we play our role as generous, merciful and kind givers, we reflect “the divine likeness” and it transforms and perfects us as heirs of eternal life.
So what will you open your heart to this Advent? Don’t be “hard-hearted and unsympathizing.” Today mine is open to the pastors and ministry administrators I am serving in Egypt. The meetings are going well!
Once your heart is open, assess what earthly wealth God has richly supplied this year, and ask God what you should do with it because it’s all His. Respond faithfully for what will happen next is bigger than the giving. Only after you open your heart, and respond in obedience and give generously, do you realize you are not diminished but enriched in the process.
We think giving is about the money, but God opens our eyes to see it is what we were made to do with Him as our Supplier. Only when we do our part, are we transformed and do we make friends for eternity.