Are You A Joyous Giver?
Good Morning Friends,
The Bible has a lot to say about money. Of the 29 parables Christ told, 16 deal with a person and their money. There is much to learn about this topic including that God desires us to give and moreover to give generously and with joy and even sacrificially. But there is a deeper message here that is not about money at all. It is about love. Are You A Joyous Giver?
Scripture: The point is this: the one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work. As it is written, “He scatters abroad, he gives to the poor; his righteousness endures forever.” He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness.
2 Corinthians 9:6-10 (NRSV)
Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.
John 12:24-26 (NRSV)
Message: What we do for the Lord is to flow out of our love. It is to be an extension of our worship for giving is rooted in God’s love. Really God does not need our money but God does invite us to give as a witness to our love. Of course, one can give without loving, but that misses the point of it all. Friends, one cannot love without giving. In the tension of today’s scripture, we must face the reality that all that we have has been given by God. We are to have an epiphany about the scripture that asks us to hate our lives and still desire to be a joyous giver. The amazing thing is that in this eye of the storm, love prompts us to give and the giving releases God’s blessings of joy and our engagement in the Kingdom to come. Intertwined with this blessing is the image of a wheat seed that dies so that it might bear much fruit. Sure, this is rather a sobering thought about love and hate in conflict. The beautiful and frightening resolution to this dilemma is found in the cross of Christ. You see, here at the foot of the cross we are called to both self-denial and self-affirmation. So, friends, the whole idea of giving is to reflect that moment of salvation and the center of all history that moves forward the Kingdom of God for the glory of God. Here we must gratefully and positively affirm life but also realize that part of our created humanness has been tainted and twisted. Thankfully Christ came to redeem it, not to destroy it. Still, whatever we are by the Fall we must deny. It like the seed must die and when it does we can discover the abundance of fruit in following Jesus’s gracious life that keeps on giving. Then we can give with the purpose that witnesses the love of Christ on the cross.
Pray we realize the abundance of life with Christ. Pray we realize that God gives us the ability to produce wealth that matters. Pray we take our ordinary life and place it before God as an offering. Pray our lives and giving reflects our death to sin and life to God. Pray our lives and giving reflect our death to self and our various taking up of crosses for God’s glory. Pray we carry in our bodies the dying of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may be revealed in us. Pray we make the connection between the legal, moral and physical aspects of death and the joy of giving to the glory of God. Pray we learn to love.
Blessings,
John Lawson
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