Meditations

“There are basically two kinds of people: givers and takers. A taker’s gonna take because at the core of their being they are convinced there will never be enough. In other words, they are practical atheists. They really don’t believe in God. A giver’s gonna give because at the core of their being they are convinced there will always be more than enough. They believe in the abundance of God. We all want to think of ourselves as givers. Thinking it doesn’t make it so. Wise living means generous giving. It’s how God created the world to work. It’s how God created us to live.”

J.D. Walt is Chief Sower at www.seedbed.com and today’s Meditation comes from his 11 January 2015 daily text entitled “A Taker’s Gonna Take. A Giver’s Gonna Give”. I subscribe to this daily text and commend it to you: it’s spiritually rich and free for everyone.

Here’s the Scripture on which J.D. based today’s post: Proverbs 11:24-25 (NIV).

One person gives freely, yet gains even more; another withholds unduly, but comes to poverty. A generous person will prosper; whoever refreshes others will be refreshed.

So are you a giver or a taker? In other words, do you live like you believe in God or not?

“It is a good, learned, and wise steward who takes the resources in his or her hands and lets them become God’s resources. Be it little or large — a widow’s mite or a king’s treasure — from the hand of a steward to the hand of God, resources become powerful tools and symbols in the kingdom of God. What do you have in your hand?”

Lee Crist in “What’s In Your Hand?” article from Light and Life Magazine, December 2014.

While our culture beckons us to focus on the things we do not have, Crist reminds us that faithful stewards consider what we do have, and he reminds us to put that stuff to work. Since it’s a new year, perhaps it’s a good time for each of us to consider what is in our hands and ask ourselves what we are doing with it.

“All [God’s] gifts point us back to him. Or at least that’s how it should work. The gift should cause us to love and worship the giver more deeply. But all too easily God’s gifts to us end up being His greatest competition.

Imagine for a moment that you’re a parent out shopping for a present to give your child. You’ve heard him talking, in tones of awe, about the latest gaming console. You see it at the store, and the thought of the smile on his face puts a smile on yours. It’s not inexpensive; in fact it’s somewhat of a sacrifice. But you want the best for your child.

When you get home and present the gift, your child offers a shout, a tight hug, and a dozen frenzied thank-yous. It was worth every penny for this moment. You stop by his room a couple of times and watch him setting it up and playing it with utter concentration. You ask him a question about the game, and he says, “Wait–can’t talk,” and then seems to forget you’re there.

Later you ask him to go out to dinner with the family, and but he begs off, wanting only to stay and play with his new game. Later on he starts to tell you about the add-ons and games his friends have, arguing that their version is much better than his. Not only do you not see him as much as before, but he seems less content and happy than before you bought this console. How could such a nice gift go so wrong?

It happened because the gift became more important than the giver. The beauty was not meant to be so much in the thing itself, but the love that brought it about.”

Kyle Idleman in God’s at War: Defeating the Idols that Battle for Your Heart (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2013) 96. I’m thankful my friends at Generous Church brought this book to my attention in their 7 January 2015 blog post. It’s a great read.

This scenario that Idleman presents speaks powerfully and challenges each of us ask this question: What gifts has God given me that compete for my heart, my affection, and my attention? Or in plain terms, what’s my gaming console?

Whatever our answer, we must give thanks for God’s love that brought the gift to us and posthaste dismantle its power. We do this by resolving to enjoy and share it — celebrating the generosity of the Giver — lest it take residence in our hearts and lives as an idol.

If you are looking for a declaration for your your family or ministry to affirm, consider this piece that individuals and organizations are adopting around the world.

The Generosity Declaration

My (Our) commitment to biblical generosity. I (We) affirm that:
• God is indescribably generous. I (We) see this in his creation and experience it in his redemption plan through the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ (John 3:16).
• God is creator, sustainer and owner of all things (Psalm 24:1). He has supplied His infinite resources to me (us) to steward for His Kingdom purposes, including to reach the ends of the earth for the glory of His name (Luke 12:42-48; Revelation 7:9-12).
• Just as Jesus lived a truly and perfectly generous life to serve and save people, it remains fundamental therefore, that Christians model biblical service, generosity and stewardship (Mark 10:45; 1 Corinthians 4:1-2; 2 Corinthians 9:8-9).

I (We), therefore, commit myself (ourselves) to foster a culture of biblical generosity and stewardship that will transform individuals and communities as I (we):
• Recognize that generosity is manifested in giving funds, resources, time, talents, gifts, prayer and my (our) very presence.
• Practice holistic stewardship, generous living, and gracious financial giving while encouraging these virtues within my (our) spheres of influence through modeling, teaching and equipping.
• Engage openly with other Christians and their networks in a global movement in which the whole church lives out and takes the whole gospel to the whole world as effective and generous stewards.

Name _____________________________
Date _____________________________

Source: www.generositymovement.org

You may also sign up for the free online Generosity eDevotional at: www.generositymovement.org/category/resources/study_guides

“I can think of four rewards for paying the price to live by faith and train children to be good stewards.

First of all, you can expect to stand before the Lord someday and receive a reward for what you have done…(Matthew 25:21)…

Second, you can expect them to be good stewards of the resources that God has entrusted to them. You can also expect to see your children train their children to manage financial resources in a godly and responsible manner.

Third, I believe that when you enter into this training process, you can expect to eliminate the conflict with children over money. That alone is sufficient reward for many parents to make this commitment.

Fourth, you can expect to see your children, even in their preteen years, begin to make sound financial decisions…Once they experience the rewards of discipline and wisdom, they will eagerly seek to make more good decisions.

Count the costs but the costs are nothing compared to the rewards. Your challenge is to commit by faith to pay the price to train your children in the way they should go (Proverbs 22:6).”

Ron Blue in Raising Money-Smart Kids: How to Teach Your Children the Secrets of Earning, Saving, Investing, and Spending Wisely (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1992) 35-36.

It has taken intentional effort for Jenni and me to teach stewardship to Sammy and Sophie. Today, it’s a blessing to watch them make good financial choices. They live on less than they make so they have resources for spending carefully while living and giving generously.

Blue emphasizes that we must give our kids freedom to fail in the growth process. We completely agree! When our children make mistakes, we must not hammer them, but lovingly ask what they learned in the process. When they make good decisions, we must affirm them with the same love.

“Creating a culture or becoming a biblically generous person will not happen until the limiting issues are properly dealt with. While giving financially was an expression of generosity, it is entirely possible for a person to give significant amounts of money and still not be generous biblically speaking. The right heart motive behind the gift is the most important aspect of giving. Wrong heart motives are traced back to the root sin of pride and pride’s favorite companions: fear, greed, selfishness, self-sufficiency, and self-absorption.

Pride is the number one obstacle to the expression of biblical generosity in a person’s life. Pride reaches into the deepest and most unsuspecting place of a person’s life. Ultimately, pride stands in the way of a person fully surrendering to Christ. Without surrendering to God, one will never tap into Christ’s power to live generously for the benefit of others.

Pride keeps people from reaching up for help and from reaching down in charity. Pride entices people to exaggerate or lie for the sake of appearance or to gain public notoriety. Pride drives people to live beyond their means, to spend money they don’t have in hopes of impressing friends or feeding their own indulgences and vanity.

While pride drives some people to overspend on themselves, fear urges others to hoard resources, to worry about the future, to think only of themselves. Greed, like fear, leads to an unhealthy attraction to material possessions. In many cases, like Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5), Achan (Joshua 7) and the ancient Israelite community (Malachi 3), greed results in the embezzlement of funds. In all three biblical instances the financial embezzlement was equated with the most detestable forms of wickedness.

Selfishness is evident by excessive focus on personal needs. Selfishness looks only to its own interest. It expects to be repaid and rewarded for any gesture of pseudo generosity given. Selfishness is predominantly visible through pettiness.

Finally, self-absorption steals joy and destroys friendships. An unhealthy obsession with one’s emotional, physical, and spiritual needs leads to people blindness: self-absorbed people cannot see the poor, impoverished, or needy person living next door. The systemic problem of self-absorption is most evident when the poor in the community are being neglected.”

Jon Swanson in a paper entitled: “Biblical Generosity in the Local Church” (Stewardship Summit 2015) 6-7.

Swanson provides candid coverage of the sins in our lives that hinder generosity. The Apostle Paul uses similar language stating that these sins represent the fruit of the flesh in contrast to the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:16-26). Join me in praying this prayer in response.

Father in heaven, please show us by your Holy Spirit where pride, fear, greed, selfishness, self-sufficiency, and self-absorption have taken root in our lives. We repent of these sins. Forgive us in your mercy. Help us instead, each day, keep in step with the Spirit so that the fruit of the Spirit, including generosity, are evident in each of our lives. We pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.

“Jubilee, as “no needy persons” [Acts 4:34] is a unifying theme for Christian generosity…The practice of Jubilee understands that, left to ourselves, disparities between wealth and poverty, and lack of economic means to thrive, will destroy the life of the community of the people of God, exhaust the land and the other economic means of support, and allow the practice of idolatry to creep back in. Therefore, Jubilee is a necessary, intentional practice, not to make sure that everything is economically shared and equal down to the last penny, but that everyone has an equal share in the inheritance of God’s people, and enough of an economic base to thrive.”

Matthew M. Thomas in a paper entitled: “’There were no needy persons among them’ as a Theology of Generosity: A Jubilee Vision” (Stewardship Summit 2015) 8-9.

In light of my recent research on OT Jubilee in relationship to NT Christian generosity (cf. Leviticus 25:8-55), I found this paper both interesting and informative. Thomas suggests that OT Jubilee foreshadows the NT generosity in that God’s people overturn the economic tables to make room for anyone and everyone in the family of God.

Rather than waiting every 50 years to practice jubilee, NT generosity exhibits God’s radical love to the world every day, making sure everyone has opportunity and provision to grasp life. And this life is abundant because it’s source is the God of abundance. In other words, we can share with jubilee or with radically abundant generosity everyday because that’s how God supplies.

“In the ministry of fundraising, we need to be ready to teach the correlation of faith and finances in difficult places so that disciples can learn to trust in God’s supply, not the supply of the West. As they reach further into their own territories and language groups where Western people and money cannot go, we can see the Great Commission accomplished as an “Acts 1:6-8 strategy” – no matter where the steward lives – turning fundraising into more worship in stewardship, Christian belief into deeper discipleship and an increase of cross-cultural ministry to more unreached people groups.”

Barbara Shantz, TWR Global Development Liaison, in a paper entitled: “The Power of “Cross-Cultural” in Stewardship and Fundraising” (Stewardship Summit 2015) 9-10.

Having just completed my first draft of a curriculum entitled, Faith and Finances, this comment from Barbara’s paper struck a chord with me. I wholeheartedly concur that disciples around the world must be taught to trust in God’s supply! We in the West have been largely to blame for the spreading the erroneous thinking that money fuels mission globally, when in reality, God does!

This year I am sensing God leading me to serve the global Church for two reasons. First, He has opened doors for teaching and service in places like Hong Kong, Thailand, Korea, and Guatemala. Second, I was recently appointed as the International Liaison for the ECFA to help rally Christ-followers around the world to faithfully administrate God’s work.

I am sensing that I when speak in these settings, I must lead with an apology on behalf of the West with regard to this problem while exhorting students to learn to trust in God’s supply. As stewards in rich and poor nations alike understand that the foundation for fruitful ministry is faithful stewardship, God’s work will flourish, not dependent on money, but on God as it did in the days of the NT.

“Jesus told a story about a rich man who made a fool of himself by the way he handled his money…Luke 12:16-21…

The first mistake a fool makes with his money is relying on man’s reason and not God’s revelation. Verse 17 tells us the man “began reasoning to himself.” He looked around at his bumper crop and began considering what he should do with his excess. I give him credit for asking the question, “What shall I do, since I have no place to store my crops?” The problem is that he never sought the wisdom and counsel of God on the matter…

The second mistake a fool makes with his money is hoarding his surplus rather than sharing it with others. The most surprising twist in the parable comes when the prosperous landowner decides to implode his old grain silos and build new and bigger ones to make room for his surplus. Maybe he thought it was good business to tear down the old and build new and bigger barns…Good business decision or not, greed motivated the man’s actions in Jesus’ story…

The third mistake a fool makes with his money is acting like an owner and not a steward. Read Luke 12:17-19 again. This time circle the words “I”, “me”, and “mine”. Now count the number of times the man uses one of those personal pronouns. If your math is like mine, you will come up with eleven times in three sentences. Whew! Have you ever seen the likes of somebody whose whole world revolves around himself? The overuse of personal pronouns is always a dead giveaway to this malady…

The fourth mistake a fool makes with his money is living with time and not eternity in view. The rich man in this parable boasts about living the Epicurean lifestyle of instant gratification. “Soul,” he says with unbridled confidence, “you have many goods laid up for many years to come; take your ease, eat, drink, and be merry” (v. 19). Tragically, what he did not factor into his self-centered, materialistic philosophy of life was the “for tomorrow you die” part…It is too easy to live your life and spend what you think is your money with no reference or thought of eternity.”

Ron L. Jones in Jesus, Money, and Me: Discovering the Link Between Your Money and Your Faith (Lincoln: iUniverse, 2004) 8-13.

In 2015 and beyond, let us be sure not to make the four mistakes fools make. Instead may we seek God’s wisdom on handling money, share financial surplus with others in need, act like stewards, and live with eternity in view.

I am off to Florida today to share thoughts like these with fellow believers. I am meeting with leaders and friends of Alpha South Florida. Undoubtedly, some of them think I am coming to talk about fundraising.

On the contrary, my aim is to aid them as stewards to avoid making foolish decisions, and instead, use what they have to participate in God’s work while rallying others to join them…not because of what they want from them, but what they want for them.

“Jesus challenges “those who have” to trust God to care for their needs by sharing what the have with those who don’t have…John Nolland writes, “To be poor, hungry, and weeping is not at all the situation that Luke envisages in the ideal state of Christian existence” (Acts 2:43-47; 4:4). Poverty is not idealized in Luke, but the reversal of it is called for (Luke 1:48, 52-53; 16:25). This is evidenced in early Christian lifestyle choices that resulted in none being needy among the fellowship of the early church because generosity prevailed (Acts 4:34)…

Luke 4:18-19 alludes to the sabbatical year of Jubilee when the afflicted will be shown generosity, when all slaves are freed, debts canceled, the blind see, and prisoners are released…The Jubilee good news Jesus speaks of in Luke 4:19 is the “year of the Lord’s favor” and is an allusion to Isaiah 61:1-2 in which God’s promises to show his favor to the afflicted through Jubilee generosity. The good news of Isaiah 61:1-2 meant the restoration of land and livelihood to the afflicted–bad news to those who had plenty unless they embraced the message and shared material wealth…

Jesus calls for generous sharing as a form of countercultural witness to the human urge to compete, acquire, and consume…Jesus challenged his audience to think more deeply about the truly “afflicted” and so consider their own responsibility for the existence of real affliction in their own land.”

Mark Bredin in The Ecology of the New Testament: Creation, Re-Creation, and the Environment (Colorado Springs: Biblica, 2010) 47-48.

Today I am celebrating God’s jubilee generosity.

For me personally, today also marks the end of 50 days with minimal travel. The family time has been priceless. I’ve also enjoyed the gift of time to reflect on God’s generosity to us in Jesus and the jubilee generosity that He desires to make known through us, His followers. Candidly, this season of reflection has been simultaneously refreshing and convicting for me. I have come to realize that as a recipient of God’s generosity, my participation with God in His work bears fruit when I live like Christ and does not bear fruit when I live like the culture.

I came to this awareness through blocks of time set aside for solitude and writing. During my jubilee, by God’s grace I wrote a 122-page biblical stewardship curriculum for use in colleges and seminaries entitled, Faith and Finances. In this curriculum I repeatedly contrast what the Word teaches vs. what the world teaches to help Christ-followers understand Jesus’ teachings and do what He says. In doing the research for this project, the Spirit showed me areas in my own life where there was work to be done, so I conclude my jubilee with this prayer for myself and readers of these daily mediations:

Father in heaven, work in our lives by your Holy Spirit so that through us, your jubilee generosity will flow richly and represent a countercultural witness for Christ. Make it so in our lives in 2015 and beyond, we pray. Amen.