People often dream about what it would be like to strike it rich. They fantasize about what they’ll buy and what they’ll give away. They have lofty ideas about what charities to support and which of their family/friends they’ll help financially. After all, when you don’t have any financial worries, you get to be ridiculously generous. Right?
There’s only one problem these fantasies: money doesn’t make you generous; it only makes you more of what you already are. Money is a magnifying glass that reveals what’s in your heart. When you dream about having a bright financial future, remember that you’ll be then what you are now…only more so.
So the right time to be generous is not then. It is now. Each of us must examine our lives. We need to consider how we’re spending the resources God has entrusted to us. We all need to be honest with ourselves regarding our generosity. Are we truly generous when we compare our lives to the New Testament’s generous ideals?
Give whatever you can according to what you have. If you are really eager to give, it isn’t important how much you are able to give. God wants you to give what you have, not what you don’t have.
~2 Cor. 8:11-12 (NLT)They sold their possessions and shared the proceeds with those in need.
~Acts 2:45 (NLT)And so it turned out that not a person among them was needy. Those who owned fields or houses sold them and brought the price of the sale to the apostles and made an offering of it.
~Acts 4:34-35 (MSG)Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
~Luke 12:33-34 (NIV)
I’d like to say that we’re a generous people, but the evidence doesn’t lead me there. When I compare the way we live today with the way believers in the New Testament lived, we’re just not nearly generous enough.
Here’s a fun exercise. Write an imaginary verse of scripture about your own generosity and ask if it truly fits in the Bible. Here’s what I wrote about myself:
Alan brought 10% of his income to the church. And he donated a stroller and some exercise equipment he never used to the church garage sale.
~Acts 29:1 (AIV) Alan’s imaginary version.
When I compare my life to the people in the Bible, I see a tremendous disconnect. So I’ve been begging God to give me a generous heart, and here’s what He’s been saying to me: “Give and live with an attitude of abundance rather than an attitude of scarcity.”
The reason I’m not generous is because I’m afraid I won’t have enough left over for me to enjoy. I live from a mentality of scarcity. Ultimately, this is just plain dumb. My Dad (God) has everything. He is my provider. He does give and will give me what I need.
What do you see in the verse you’d write about yourself? What is God saying to you about your willingness to be generous?
