Dallas Willard: Don’t just send help to the needy. Be the help!

Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited. Romans 12:16

“Jesus did not send help. He came among us. He was victorious under our conditions of existence. That makes all the difference. We continue on his incarnational model when we follow the apostle’s command “to associate with people of low position” by unassumingly walking with them in the path of the their daily affairs, not just on special occasions created because of their need.”

Dallas Willard in The Spirit of the Disciplines (San Francisco: Harper, 1988) 213.

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Matthew 6:19-21

“Lord Jesus, regarding my money and resources: do they own my heart, or am I stewarding them well? Your words are ringing in my heart–where my treasure is, there is my heart also. Where is my heart today, Lord? I submit to your loving embrace and your honest evaluation. Where the things of this world have a grip on my heart, help me to release them. Where I value possessions more than I honor you, the Lord of all, forgive me and grant me your compassion. Where I long for things that have been created more than you, the Creator of all things, grant me your peace. I want my heart to treasure that which you treasure, Lord. May it be so today, for you and you alone are the center of my heart and the lover of my soul. In Jesus name. Amen.”

Stephen Macchia in Crafting a Rule of Life (Downers Grove: IVP, 2012) 125.

No one can serve two masters. 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 both God and Money. Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life…but seek first [God’s] kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Matthew 6:24-25, 33

“Today we obtained, without any trouble, through the kind hand of God, very suitable premises for the Infant Orphan-House. If we had laid out many hundreds in building a house, we could scarcely have built one more suitable for the purpose. How evident is the hand of God in all these matters. How important to leave our concerns, great and small, with Him; for He arranges all things well! If our work be His work, we shall prosper in it.”

George Mueller as quoted by Stephen Macchia in Crafting a Rule of Life (Downers Grove: IVP, 2012) 121-122.

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. John 14:27

“This is the legacy of Christ: peace. It is His peace that is our inheritance. He gives the gift in a way that is different from gifts that are given in this world. There are no ulterior motives and no sinister strings attached. He gives us His peace not for His benefit but for ours. It is an otherworldly gift given in an otherworldly manner.”

R.C. Sproul in The Holiness of God, 2nd ed. (Tyndale, 1998) 152.

I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way. Ephesians 1:17-23

“The resurrection power that raised Christ from the dead, then seated Him at the right hand of the Father and put Him over all principalities and powers, is the same power given to us…

You’ve been given the opportunity to function in the realm of resurrection power—the most exciting life you could ever imagine…

What could God do in you and through you if you believed He has already blessed you with every spiritual blessing, delivered you out of the kingdom of darkness, and taken you who were dead in sin and made you fully alive in Christ?”

Mel Blackaby and Henry Blackaby in Experiencing the Resurrection (Colorado Springs: Multnomah, 2008) 4-5.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16

“The most profound moment in the movement of divine generosity is the moment that takes us from death to life, from the cross to the resurrection…It is ultimately in the bright light of Easter morning that we finally get a clear look at what God’s generosity is all about…Yet, it is important for us to realize that even in this ultimate movement, Christ’s cross is not left behind.

Had the cross been merely a means to an end, a simple “tool” in the larger scheme of God’s purposes, early Christianity might have chosen a different image as the great sign and symbol of the faith. But as history has shown us, that was not the case.

The cross remains at the center of everything, even after the resurrection; and not only for understanding the salvation God has accomplished in the past, or only as the pattern for our own obedience, but also for our experience of God himself and his abundance in the present.”

Kelly Kapic in God So Loved, He Gave (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010) 157.

God demonstrated his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8

“The highest act of love is the giving of the best gift, and, if necessary, at the greatest cost, to the least deserving. This is what God did. At the cost of his Son’s life, to the totally undeserving. God gave the best gift.”

John Piper in God is the Gospel (Wheaton: Crossway, 2005) 139.

If you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God. To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in his steps. He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.” When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. “He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by his wounds you have been healed.” For “you were like sheep going astray,” but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls. 1 Peter 2:20b-25

“Suffering in itself is nothing; but suffering shared with Christ’s passion is a wonderful gift. Man’s most beautiful gift is that he can share in the passion of Christ. Yes, a gift and a sign of his love; because this is how his Father proved he loved the world–by giving His Son to die for us.”

Mother Teresa (1910-1997), quotation from the Good Friday reading in Bringing Lent Home with Mother Teresa: Prayers, Reflections and Activities for Families by Donna-Marie Cooper O’Boyle (Notre Dame: Ave Maria Press, 2012).

I told them, “If you think it best, give me my pay; but if not, keep it.” So they paid me thirty pieces of silver. And the LORD said to me, “Throw it to the potter”—the handsome price at which they valued me! So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them to the potter at the house of the LORD. Zechariah 11:12-13 (cf. Matthew 26:15; 27:3)

“Israel always tried to buy off Yahweh with thirty pieces of silver. It gave him a modicum of Yahweh-religion which it made as similar as possible to the religion of all other peoples. It gave Him a minimum of sacrificial and legal observance—just enough to maintain the cult formally throughout the centuries, much as the thirty pieces of silver were eventually good enough to be put in the treasury whose contents were earmarked for the current upkeep of the temple.

Israel was never prepared to give Him the full offering of thanksgiving for His faithfulness as the Shepherd, and it therefore refused to give Him the one thing which it owed. The paltry and wholly inadequate payment which Israel dared to offer God for His faithfulness as the Shepherd, the thirty pieces of silver, are themselves returned to Judas and therefore to the people of Israel as a payment for his faithlessness…

This, then, must be his reward. In the person of Judas there is so to speak, handed back—and from the hand of his own leaders—that which he had dared to offer to God in place of what he owed Him. The rejection of Israel by its Good Shepherd, to which that passage in Zechariah refers, is now inexorably executed, but in a way which is certainly not foreseen in that passage, for it is not the flock sold by the sheep-dealers that is led to slaughter, but the Good Shepherd Himself.”

Karl Barth (1886-1968) in Church Dogmatics: The Doctrine of God (New York: T&T Clark, 2010) 271.

Then one of the Twelve—the one called Judas Iscariot—went to the chief priests and asked, “What are you willing to give me if I deliver him over to you?” So they counted out for him thirty pieces of silver. From then on Judas watched for an opportunity to hand him over. Matthew 26:14-16

“Knowing the tendency of the human heart to become unduly attached to earthly goods, Christ warned against it. The “things” which the Father gives are to be understood as provisional merely and must never be considered our real treasure. The heart always returns to its real treasure, and if a man holds corn to be a real form of wealth his heart will be where his corn is.

Many a man has his heart locked up in a bank vault, and many a woman has her heart in her jewel box or stored at the furrier’s. It is a great moral tragedy when anything as wonderful as the human heart comes to rest on the earth and fails to rise to its own proper place in God and in heaven.

Treasure, incidentally, may be discovered by this fourfold test: (1) It is what we value most. (2) It is what we would hate most to lose. (3) It is what our thoughts turn to most frequently when we are free to think of what we will. (4) It is what affords us the greatest pleasure.”

A.W. Tozer (1897-1963), excerpt from “The Transmutation of Wealth” in Born After Midnight (Harrisburg: Christian Publications, 1959).