Meditations

I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings. 1 Corinthians 9:23

“There are two ways of enjoying the past as there are two ways of enjoying a foreign country. One man carries his Englishry abroad with him and brings it home unchanged. Wherever he goes he consorts with other English tourists. By a good hotel he means one that is like an English hotel. He complains of the bad tea where he might have had excellent coffee…

But there is another sort of travelling and another sort of reading. You can eat the local food and drink the local wines, you can share the foreign life, you can begin to see the foreign country as it looks, not to the tourist, but to its inhabitants. You can come home modified, thinking, and feeling as you did not think and feel before.”

C.S. Lewis in Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Literature, “De Audiendis Poetis” (late 1950s, first published in 1966) 2-3.

Happy new year from snowy Colorado.

My word for 2022 is “share” and I’m excited about it. It can function as a verb or as a noun. It’s the primary biblical term linked to giving in the New Testament, and it will be fun to explore its use by ancient and modern authors for growing in generosity.

I started the year by exploring its use by my favorite professor, C.S. Lewis. Here he urges people to set aside bias and expectations to appreciate differences. To do this, we “share the foreign life” and in so doing, come home modified as a result.

As I travel a lot and can relate to this, but we don’t have to travel to do it. We can “share” the experiences of others right where God has us in loving, compassionate, and generous ways. It costs time and energy, calls for patience and humility, and transforms us in the process.

So, as the pandemic persists, this may also come into view as drawing near to aid someone or “share” in their suffering. As 2022 begins, consider how you might share (the verb) with others daily from the share (the noun) of spiritual and material blessings you have received from God.

The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it; for He founded it on the seas and established it on the waters. Psalm 24:1-2

“It is a curious notion to assume that all of creation belongs to the God we worship, love, and serve. It certainly feels like I own my car. God is not the recipient of my mortgage payment. If God is the owner even of those who live upon the earth, is it asking too much for God to step in and help with homework every now and again?

I’ve been a pastor for many years, but I still struggle at times with truly acknowledging that God owns everything. Several years ago I had a conversation with Kermit, a young Navaho man living in Arizona, who helped me rethink and break apart my sophomoric understanding of ownership. He asked, if I did not create the land, how could I claim ownership upon it?

If I did not create the mountains, he told me, I cannot place my flag at its peak. If I am not the source of the stream, I cannot claim that it crosses a border. It is indeed true that creation belongs to God, and God alone can claim ownership because God alone is creator. Humans can shape, mold, and form, but “to create” is something only God can accomplish.”

Matt Rawle in Saving Grace: Hope-Filled Devotions Along the Way to Financial Well-Being (Nashville: Abingdon, 2020) 15.

Sophomoric means pretentious or juvenile. Anyone who thinks or acts as though he or she owns anything is pretentious or juvenile. But as Pastor Matt says, we do this all the time.

As the year draws to a close, let us decide to put away such childish thinking as Paul urges us.

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 1 Corinthians 13:11

God alone creates and can claim ownership. He put us in the garden at the beginning not to own it but to steward it. Let’s make stewardship our aim in 2022. To assist you, check out my free devotional book, Steward.

Go through it with a friend or small group in January 2022. Lean into your identity and responsibility as a steward and put off sophomoric thinking.

If anyone is poor among your fellow Israelites in any of the towns of the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward them. Rather, be openhanded and freely lend them whatever they need. Deuteronomy 15:7-8

“What are we going to do now?” Our world had turned upside down the day before when my husband’s income, our carefully planned future, suddenly seemed perched on a terrifying precipice. In that moment, a memory instantly transported me from that breakfast room to the edge of a cliff on a West Virginia Mountain top.

An inexperienced climber, I had gone on a mountain-climbing instruction weekend with college friends. The panoramic view from the summit was breathtaking—ample reward for the long, challenging ascent. When it was time to descend the mountain, I learned we were going to rappel our way down, which literally involved stepping off a cliff.

I was outfitted with a harness and instructed how to use my hand as a brake to control my descent. Stepping backward off the sheer drop, with only the rope to prevent me from falling hundreds of feet to the ground below, was one of the most terrifying moments I have ever experienced.

And as I stepped off that cliff, I was dismayed to discover I wasn’t moving downward at all. I hung there suspended in space, and panic began to set in. Then I heard the gentle voice of my instructor above me saying. “You are gripping the rope too tightly, Jennifer. Loosen your hold a little and let the rope flow through your hands.”

I followed his instructions, and slowly descended until my thankful feet stood on solid ground. I recalled that experience on the mountain as I sat there with my husband… both of us feeling as though we were suspended in air with no safety tether. Our conversation ended with fervent prayers to discern God’s next plan for us.

God faithfully answered our prayers… as our financial situation began to recover, I found we had the tendency to hold tightly onto our earnings—the pain of the recent job loss was still very fresh in our memory. But God’s gentle voice reminded us to loosen our grip–to let the blessings God provides flow through us—just like the rappel rope on the mountain.”

Jennifer Wilder Morgan in Saving Grace: Hope-Filled Devotions Along the Way to Financial Well-Being (Nashville: Abingdon, 2020) 13-14.

This is a great little book. I commend it to anyone who desires to live openhandedly and generously. It’s also for those who want to help others grow spiritually linked to financial matters. It uses little stories like this one to send big messages.

The memory of difficult times in the past causes us to hold tight to what we have in the present. When Jennifer loosened her grip, she made it to solid ground. Likewise, when we loosen our grip on money, we find the solid path God desires for us.

Pause to ponder your generosity as 2021 ends. Are you holding tightly to God’s resources in fear? How might loosening your grip and choosing to let God’s blessings flow help you find the solid path your heart longs for?

So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. Matthew 6:31-32

“This is difficult teaching! It strikes at the key values of our culture: impress others, amass as many goods as possible, and do not depend on anyone else. These values are so pervasive that we no longer recognize them easily as non-gospel. We do not bat an eye at the way they shape our imaginations; we do not recognize our surrender to those things instead of to God. We recognize that we are anxious but don’t perceive that these very values are creating much of our anxiety…

Jesus is calling us today to assess the idols made evident by our worrying. So now I read it differently. I hear Jesus saying, “Let the idols that are keeping you awake at night go. They are false idols that will consume you.” I also hear a call to reorientation, for God knows what I need, and if I pay attention, I might align my financial life to the needs that God knows, instead of needs that the world wants me to think it knows. And through that, I will find a salvation that I never thought possible: the freedom from the anxiety of my idol worship.”

Juan Huertas in Saving Grace: Hope-Filled Devotions Along the Way to Financial Well-Being (Nashville: Abingdon, 2020) 11-12.

In today’s Scripture, Jesus shines light on the fact that pagans don’t know any better than to worry about even the most basic things in life. This is difficult teaching, for sure.

Huertas reveals that this worrying reveals our idols. So, the words of Jesus come into view as a call to reorientation to align our lives to what Gods knows we need rather than what the world wants us to think.

This causes us practically speaking to experience freedom rather than anxiety. But we have to let go of those idols, those things the world tells us we need.  What idols do you hold onto? 

Others have noted that deliverance from this worldly entrapment comes from radical obedience and generous giving. As we enter the new year, what might reorientation look like for you?

What do you need to let go of?

“My Father is always at His work to this very day, and I too am working.” John 5:17

“Before we set our own goals and start working our own plans, we need to take time to consider how God is working around us. Eve with the best financial habits, money comes and money goes. Instead of measuring our worth through our investment portfolio, we need to remember our worth in Jesus Christ. When we plant ourselves in God, we will find ourselves blossoming. Whether it is lush green lawn in deep soil or bright blues of a beloved wildflower in rocky ground, our true wealth is rooted in the love of Jesus Christ through prayer, worship, community, and care of the other. When we align our lives to God, we invest in the joyful work of cooperating with all the rich wonders that God makes grow.”

Todd Salmi in Saving Grace: Hope-Filled Devotions Along the Way to Financial Well-Being (Nashville: Abingdon, 2020) 10.

Many of us return to work today. After a long weekend celebrating the birth of our Lord and Savior, it’s time to get back to work. So where should we apply ourselves? Careful, it’s a trick question.

The answer is that we must all plant ourselves in God regardless of our vocation.

Many people start the year crafting plans. Alternatively, I advise people to do the opposite. Fast, pray, and confess dependence on God to discern direction, to consider how God is working and engage with Him where you are with what you have.

One thing happens when we do this, when we plant ourselves in God. The result is blossoming.

Even as Jesus worked where He saw the Father working, we too can do likewise. It’s cooperating with God, and the best part is that we enjoy community with Him and others in the process.

So how might this idea shape your generosity in the new year? I will let you answer that alone with Him.

The LORD said to Aaron, “You will have no inheritance in their land, nor will you have any share among them; I am your share and your inheritance among the Israelites. Numbers 18:20

“God’s gifts are many. His best gift is one. It is the gift of Himself. Above all gifts, God desires most to give Himself to His people. Our nature being what it is, we are the best fitted of all creatures to know and enjoy God. “For thou madest us for Thyself, and our heart is restless, until it repose in Thee” (from The Confessions of St. Augustine).

When God told Aaron, “Thought shalt have no inheritance in their land, neither shalt though have any part among them: I am thy part and thine inheritance among the children of Israel” (Numbers 18:20). He in fact promised a portion infinitely above all the real estate in Palestine and all the earth thrown in. To possess God—this is the inheritance ultimate and supreme.”

A.W. Tozer in From Heaven: A 28-day Advent Devotional (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2016) 121-122.

Aaron and his descendents would become known as Levites. That word means attached to the house of God. Levites had no land on which to grow coffee or corn, or on which to graze sheep or cattle. God was their portion.

He was enough for them.

Many Daily Meditations readers can relate. You serve at a church or ministry and have no other means of income for the work or for your family beyond which God supplies. Let me remind you today that God is our portion.

He is enough for you.

But it is easy to get restless. For example, you have a funding goal that is not yet met and 4 days until year-end. What should you do? This is where you must say to yourself, “Truly my soul finds rest in God; my salvation comes from Him.”

He is enough for everyone.

Find repose or tranquility in knowing that God knows your needs and will supply in His timing. And if you are reading this and have the ability to give generously this year-end, please do give to God’s work as you are able?

And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased. Hebrews 13:16

“Quaker author Philip Gulley was asked the difference between a Quaker and an Episcopalian. He replied, “If a Quaker gets a new sweater, and there is not room in his wardrobe, he gives a sweater away. An Episcopalian buys a larger wardrobe.” While I’m not sure his generalization applies to all Episcopalians or Quakers, his point was made. Most of us are in pursuit of more.

In some countries, the day after Christmas is another holiday, Boxing Day. People take their excess food, gifts, money, possessions, box them up and give them to those in need.

Here, the day after Christmas is the day to buy more stuff, hopefully at better prices than before. Because the business of the American kingdom is… business. But the business of God’s kingdom is people, according to Jesus.

Nothing wrong with business. It provides a means for people to live, but people should be the priority. Jesus did not die so the stock market could go up. He died so people could be saved. I look around at all my stuff and ask “What do I really need? What is important to me?”

Michael B. Henderson of South Carolina in Bethlehem United Methodist Church email dated 25 December 2021. Shared with me by faithful Daily Meditations reader, Randy Bury. Worth sharing widely. So good.

What will you be known for?

With humor, Henderson alerts us with generalizations to the reputation of the Quakers and the Episcopalians.

But what about you and your family? What would people say you do with your surplus?

Today is Boxing Day in many parts of the world, where sharing happens with intentionality. Imagine if every Christian practiced it, the impact we could have together.

Sadly, my American culture will likely focus more on business than people today.

Perhaps as your attention turns from Christmas to the new year, sit in texts like Psalm 103 so as to reflect on God’s benefits to you, and consider how you have been resourced to bless others. And follow the instructions of the writing of Hebrews. Do good and share richly for such sacrifices please God.

But when the set time had fully come, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship. Galatians 4:4-5

“Hurry kills relationships. Love takes time; hurry doesn’t have it. It kills joy, gratitude, appreciation; people in a rush don’t have time to enter into the goodness of the moment. It kills wisdom; wisdom is born in the quiet, the slow. Wisdom has it’s own pace. It makes you wait for it—wait for the inner voice to come to the surface of your tempestuous mind, but not until waters of thought settle and calm. Hurry kills all that we hold dear: spirituality, health, marriage, family, thoughtful work, creativity, generosity… name your value. Hurry is a sociopathic predator loose in our society.”

John Mark Comer in The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry: How to Stay Emotionally Healthy and Spiritually Alive in the Chaos of the Modern World (Colorado Springs: WaterBrook, 2019) 52-53.

Happy Christmas.

Special thanks to my Aussie mate, Andrew Russell, for pointing me to this book.

I pray each of us is able to take time to ponder the sigificance of today. God took His time. And, just when all the factors came together, He sent us Jesus, to redeem us under the law and adopt us as His children.

We, on the other had, have a tendency not to take time but to hurry. We think we are helping situations and really we are making things worse. I’m convicted, pondering how hurry has impacted my relationships, my service, my generosity.

I am so guilty of this. God forgive me.

Interestingly, on my trip to Africa, my word for most every day was patience as hurry was not an option. Nothing goes fast in Africa. As I rest and reflect on the trip, that’s a big lesson for me. Thanks God.

So, as you celebrate the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ today, join me in considering how hurry may be trying to destroy your life, hinder your impact, and limit your generosity. Instead discover the power of “going slow to go fast.”

Now about the collection for the Lord’s people: Do what I told the Galatian churches to do. On the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with your income, saving it up, so that when I come no collections will have to be made. Then, when I arrive, I will give letters of introduction to the men you approve and send them with your gift to Jerusalem. If it seems advisable for me to go also, they will accompany me. 1 Corinthians 16:1-4

“Paul’s references to this collection of money for the poor in Jerusalem – what he taught about it, and the safeguards he put in place around it – are revealing and instructive for us. They show Paul’s strong sense of accountability, transparency, and integrity. His example and his teaching apply just as much now to the financial affairs of churches and missions as they did in his day.

Paul makes use of the collection as an occasion for significant teaching. In fact, he gives more textual space in his letters to writing about this financial matter than he does to writing about justification by faith. That probably surprises us. Saying this, of course, is not in any sense to belittle Paul’s doctrine of justification or any of his great doctrinal teaching. But it does remind us that he considered Christian giving to be a matter of great theological importance also.”

Christopher J. H. Wright in The Gift of Accountability in his book The Shortfall: Owning the Challenge of Ministry Funding (Carlisle, UK: Langham Global Library, 2021) 50.

Matters of diligent financial administration appear as theologically important to Paul as faithful gospel proclamation. Likely this is because He knew you can’t have one without the other.

Why mention this on the eve of Christmas?

God so loved the world that He gave us Jesus. It’s only fitting that our giving, reflect God’s giving and that it be stewarded with standards to preserve the integrity of gospel-centered efforts.

No wonder Jesus and Paul wanted us to get money right!

If you are looking for a ministry to support that helps churches and ministries get their house in order with accountability, transparency, and integrity, check out GTP at GTP.org.

A gift at this time will help us go from five to eight staff to expand our reach worldwide. This empowers ministries to help more people get to know the Christ of Christmas.

And here is my judgment about what is best for you in this matter. Last year you were the first not only to give but also to have the desire to do so. Now finish the work, so that your eager willingness to do it may be matched by your completion of it, according to your means. For if the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what one does not have. 2 Corinthians 8:10-12

“During the previous year the Corinthian Christians had been the first not only in giving but in desiring to give. So, now Paul urges them to finish the task they had begun, so that their doing will keep pace with their desiring. This must be according to their means. For Christian giving is proportionate giving. The eager willingness comes first; so long as that is there, the gift is acceptable in proportion to what the giver has.

This expression “according to your means” might remind us of two similar expressions which occur in Acts. In Acts 11:29, members of the church in Antioch gave to the famine-stricken Judean Christians “as each one was able.” In Acts 2 and 4, members of the church in Jerusalem gave “to anyone who had need” Acts 2:45; 4:35)…

Christian giving is proportionate giving. Of course there are times when we are called to give as the Macedonians gave, out of proportion to our income, as a sacrificial offering in particular circumstances. But the principle here is a foundational one. Christian giving should never be less than proportionate to our income.”

John R. W. Stott in The Grace of Giving in The Shortfall: Owning the Challenge of Ministry Funding by Christopher J. H Wright (Carlisle, UK: Langham Global Library, 2021) 37-38.

One of the leading hindrances to generosity in Africa and around the world is percentage giving. Those who teach that a percentage of a person’s income belongs to God and the rest belongs to them, actually send them to slavery because we become slaves to whatever we think we own.

Paul would say that promoters of the tithe both wrongly divide the word of truth and promote unacceptable giving. Alternatively, acceptable giving flows out of an eager heart that measures cheerful giving proportionately. Because all we possess is God’s, we give what we have.

There was not one but three tithes in the Old Testament law. They were designed to teach people to give to God, to care for each other, and to support the needy, the dispossessed, and people in ministry. They were designed as a base or a foundation and never designed to be a ceiling to limit giving.

That said, practically speaking, acceptable giving might appear as setting up automatic giving as a base. Then from there to have margin for Good Samaritan giving, that is, spontaneously aiding those in need that God puts in our path. It’s also wise to live on less than you make to have resources for new giving.

God is at work doing new things around us and invites us to put to work what we have to engage with Him. So, that our ‘doing’ can keep pace with our ‘desiring’ as the year ends, it’s a good time for each of us take inventory. We should also look around for new opportunities. As God has blessed us, let us resolve to put His resources to work.

Give proportionately with an eager heart.