Archives by: Gary Hoag

People often ask me for practical examples of people who are teaching biblical principles of generosity. Today’s post features what God is doing through a group of students, Harvesters, at Johnson University linked to the chapel offering.

“Harvesters recognizes the need for a transformation in the way the student body views the chapel offering. During the 2014/2015 school year, Harvesters realized a lack of purpose and ownership, as well as a degree of confusion from the student body. Through research, mentoring, and discussions, Harvesters has decided that, in regards to the chapel offering, the student body has drifted away from a biblical view of generosity. A paradigm shift is necessary for the offering to benefit both the givers and the recipient. When the student body roots itself in a biblical view of generosity the purpose for giving will be clear and ownership of the offering will be given to the entire student body. The result will be a spiritually transforming experience for the student body and meaningful gift for the offering recipient.

The paradigm shift is a shift from need based giving to spiritual formation based giving. The reason for giving then moves from a financial transaction to a spiritual transaction. Giving becomes an opportunity for us to grow in our relationship with God. Giving is an act of worship, where we spend our money demonstrates where our heart is, so we want the quality and thoughtfulness of our giving to demonstrate an undivided devotion to God. Despite the financial burdens of being a student, we want student giving to be rich towards God regardless of what that may amount to. On this note we want to drive two ideals home.

First, we want to drive home the full meaning of the story of the story of the widow’s mite from Mark 12:41-44. Second, we want to focus in on last year’s efforts to create a partnership with the chosen missionary. During the 2014/2015 school year Harvesters attempted to create a partnership of prayer, giving, and encouragement with our chosen missionary. This was done through the utilization of commitment cards; we found great success in the encouragement aspect, and nominal success in the giving and prayer aspects.

For the 2015/2016 school year Harvesters is choosing to focus in on reforming the giving aspect of this partnership. We will continue to press a prayer element, but our teaching energies will not be focused there. The hope is to show students that everyone has something to offer whether time, talent, or resources and Harvesters plans to create avenues to contribute those things so that the fruit may increase to the student body’s credit!”

Philip Eubanks, a friend and former student of mine who works with the Harvesters, shared this example with me. Email him directly at PEubanks@johnsonu.edu or email me if you’d like to receive the PDF of their detailed Harvesters 2015/2016 plan! It’s a wonderful sample that you just might decide to adapt to your setting.

“Transiency is stamped on all our possessions, occupations, and delights. We have to hunger for eternity in our souls, the thought of eternity in our hearts, the destination for eternity written in our inmost being, and the need to ally ourselves with eternity proclaimed by the most short-lived trifles of time. Either these things will be the blessing or curse of our lives. Which do you mean that they shall be for you?”

Alexander Maclaren (1826-1910) Scottish minister in Forty Thousand Quotations, Prose and Poetical, compiled by Charles Noel Douglas (London: George G. Harrap & Co., 1917) 560.

When we treat “possessions, occupations, and delights” as what they are, temporary, transient, and earthly, they are put in their rightful place as a “blessing” both to us and others. Alternatively, when they captivate our hearts, dominate our time, and define our identity, they become a “curse” to us. There’s no middle ground. There’s only a decision for each of us to make. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. Colossians 3:2

“Because people believe not in Providence, therefore they do so greedily scrape and hoard. They do not believe in any reward for charity, therefore they will part with nothing.”

Isaac Barrow (1630-1677) Anglican scholar, in Forty Thousand Quotations, Prose and Poetical, compiled by Charles Noel Douglas (London: George G. Harrap & Co., 1917) 136.

Do you foolishly and greedily hoard or faithfully and graciously give? Don’t reply with a rationalization. I am not trying to rob you I am trying to help you. Perhaps you think it’s possible to do both?

What does Jesus instruct on the matter? He’s clear. Do not store up treasures on earth. Store them up in heaven. What’s at stake? Taking hold of life today and eternal rewards tomorrow.

It’s not about money at all, it’s about whether or not you believe that God is our providential Provider or not? Will He care for those who trust and reward those who obey or won’t He?

Work hard as unto the Lord. Live within your means. Enjoy and share God’s material and spiritual blessings with others. Receive richly from others when you are in need. Show the world that you believe by your actions.

“It should be an indispensable rule in life to contract our desires to our present condition, and whatever may be our expectations, to live within the compass of what we actually possess.”

Joseph Addison (1672-1719) in Day’s Collacon, compiled and arranged by Edward Parsons Day (New York: IPPO, 1884) 178.

Living beyond our means not only hinders generosity but enslaves us to debt, and then we discover that even the idea being generous has been swallowed up by our own unbridled desires.

Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” Hebrews 13:5

“Riches without charity are nothing worth; they are only a blessing to those who make them a blessing to others.”

Sarah Fielding (1714-1768) English authoress in Day’s Collacon, compiled and arranged by Edward Parsons Day (New York: IPPO, 1884) 903.

There’s a common expression people use: all is grace. It means that everything we have is the result of God’s grace in our lives: our life, our salvation, our resources, everything. All is grace.

With that, we must not forget that the Greek word for grace is charis. In other words, it came to us from God and must flow through us to others. That’s what charity is all about.

Consequently, material blessings only take on their rightful function when they are handled with grace. This is God’s design for all things. All is grace.

“There is one way whereby we may secure our riches, and make sure friends to ourselves of them–by laying them out in charity.”

John Tillotson (1630-1694) Archbishop of Canterbury in Forty Thousand Quotations, Prose and Poetical, compiled by Charles Noel Douglas (London: George G. Harrap & Co., 1917) 1500.

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

“We’ve set out to work with organizations that directly tell people about Christ, from global ministries such as Every Home for Christ, to our local rescue mission. In this way, we hope to keep Hobby Lobby on track as God’s company, not ours. We want the company to continue for decades, even centuries, as an ongoing source of financial fuel for God’s work around the world…

I believe my responsibility to handle the company’s assets is directly tied to God’s endeavors in the world. He has asked folks like you and me to think like God thinks about resources so He can advance His priorities. Through the efforts of the company God has allowed us to build, I want as many people as possible to know Christ as Savior.”

David Green in “The Purpose of a Merchant” as recounted by William High in The Generosity Bet: Secrets of Risk, Reward, and Real Joy (Shippensburg, PA: Destiny, 2014) 145-146.

Sammy and I are fly fishing with Bryan and Zac Chrisman today. Bryan oversees the work of National Christian Foundation Colorado. After I posted a quote from this book, The Generosity Bet, about a week ago, Bryan told me he has extra copies of it that he’d love to share freely with Meditations readers. It’s a great book filled with inspiring stories! To get your free copy of The Generosity Bet while supplies last, email Bryan at bchrisman@nationalchristian.com today.

“In America, with its vast abounding wealth, its grand expanse of prairie, its reach of river, and its exuberant productiveness, there is danger that our riches will draw us away from God, and fasten us to earth; that they will make us not only rich, but mean; not only wealthy, but wicked. The grand corrective is the cross of Christ, seen in the sanctuary where the life and light of God are exhibited, and where the reverberation of echoes of the great white throne are heard.”

R. S. Storrs (1821-1900) American Congregationalist clergyman in Forty Thousand Quotations, Prose and Poetical, compiled by Charles Noel Douglas (London: George G. Harrap & Co., 1917) 1504.

Is this what you have witnessed in our society? Does our own “exuberant productiveness” both draw us from God and “fasten us” to this earth? Have riches made Americans a “wicked” people? Father in Heaven, forgive us our sins, for allowing your material blessings to stop with us and spoil us rather than flow through us to bless others for your glory. Correct our path, realign it to the cross of Christ by your Holy Spirit, we pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.

“I feel it is almost impossible to say anything (in my comfort and security—apparent security, for real security is in Heaven and thus earth affords only imitations) which would not sound horribly false and facile. Also, you know it all better than I do. I should in your place be (I have in similar places been) far more panic-stricken and even perhaps rebellious. For it is a dreadful truth that the state of (as you say) “having to depend solely on God” is what we all dread most. And of course that just shows how very much, how almost exclusively, we have been depending on things.

But trouble goes so far back in our lives and is now so deeply ingrained, we will not turn to Him as long as He leaves us anything else to turn to. I suppose all one can say is that it was bound to come. In the hour of death and the day of judgment, what else shall we have? Perhaps when those moments come, they will feel happiest who have been forced (however unwittingly) to begin practicing it here on earth. It is good of Him to force us; but dear me, how hard to feel that it is good at the time.”

C.S. Lewis (1898-1963) in Letters to an American Lady, excerpt from letter dated 16 December 1955 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1971) 49.

As our world crumbles around us, both morally and politically, what shall our response be? Will we seek that which is “false and facile” simply because it’s ingrained in us to depend on things? Or will we realize that “having to depend solely on God” is something we avoid at all cost but represents the only secure place that God is drawing each of us.

Psalm 121
I lift up my eyes to the mountains—where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth. He will not let your foot slip—he who watches over you will not slumber; indeed, he who watches over Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord watches over you—the Lord is your shade at your right hand; the sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord will keep you from all harm—he will watch over your life; the Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore.

“It is impossible for you to live according to God if you love pleasures and money.”

Isidore the Priest of Scété (c. 4th century) as cited by John Chryssavgis in In the Heart of the Desert: The Spirituality of the Desert Fathers and Mothers (Bloomington, IN: World Wisdom) 106.

The desert fathers cut to the chase, do they not?

Isidore is spot on. Jesus repeatedly said you can’t serve God and money because if you try to do both, you will hate one and love the other.

In response, Isidore exhorts hearers to “live according to God.” Following God’s pathway set forth in His Word is the only way to live!