Generosity-Ownership-Stewardship

Here's something that just came to me last week and I wanted to share it even though I'm still researching it. The issue of stewardship versus ownership presents an interesting quandary regarding what our generosity reflects. Sometimes a discussion regarding generosity can seems to focus on the benevolence of our heart.

While God's end goal is the transformation of our hearts. The first step in that process may be our simply obedience. If we accept the fact that God is the owner and we are simply stewards of His possession, then our primary job is to be responsive to His directions, preferences and prompting for the use of his possession.

Faithful stewardship requires that we manage His possession in manner that reflects the heart of the owner, even if that does not yet reflect our own heart. The owner is generous. While we are getting there we should still act as faithful stewards. The priority of our giving should be to respond to God's will rather than our own.

However, God desires that over time our heart would reflect His heart. It is far easier to execute one's stewardship when your heart is in it. God gives His possession to us as part of His plan to transform us to become like Him, to make us generous. He enriches us that we may abound in good work. He enriches us to increase the harvest of our righteousness. He enriches us that we would become generous.

2 Cor 9: 8-11

Larry

Why Did Jesus Ask Him To Give

Matthew 19:16-22; Mark 10: 17-22; Luke 18:18-23

In this familiar passage of scripture Jesus encountered a young rich man who asked how to obtain eternal life. Jesus initially gave the expected Jewish response. The man should keep the commandments. The man replied that he had done so. Maybe he knew this was not enough. Maybe that was what prompted his inquiry. We don't know. What we do know is that Jesus declared the insufficiency of the man's efforts and challenged the man to give sacrificially. Jesus' response baffled His disciples and still baffles believers today. Why did Jesus ask the man to give sacrificially? We often discuss the impediment that material wealth presents to our pursuit of God, but I believe the passage reveals more.

• Mark states that Jesus looked on the man and loved him. Jesus' request seems directly connected to His love for the man.

• Jesus saw the man's need. The man desired eternal life but was found lacking. Jesus did not request that the man give because of Jesus' need but rather as a result of the man's own need. The man needed to give to obtain the fullness of his goal. Jesus explains in John 17:3 that eternal life is our coming to know the Father (the only true God) and the Son. As we grow in that knowledge we discover that the Father and the Son are sacrificial givers.

• Giving is an integral part of God's redemptive plan for believers. It is a requisite component of discipleship. Notice that Jesus instructs the man to give "and come, follow me." More than simply saving us from the penalty of sin, God want us to grow. He is conforming believers into His image.

• Jesus wanted to bless the man. Jesus spoke from an eternal perspective. Our actions on earth have eternal consequences. Our giving on earth reserves treasure for us in heaven. Jesus encouraged the man to trade temporary earthly possessions for eternal treasure. Through his giving the man wouldn't lose, he would gain.

How transforming would it be if we could help people realize that God's plan for our sacrificial giving flows from the fact that He loves us, that He knows what we need, that He is revealing Himself to us and conforming us into His image and that our giving is intended to bless us.

Prayer Request

More Than The Gift’s presence on the internet has been facilitated by my use of Apple products. Over the past 2 years years the web message has reached:

53 States or U. S. Territories
93 Countries Outside of the U.S.A.
6 Continents

My prayer is that God uses the information to change perceptions, hearts and behaviors. While I’ve received over 20,000 hits, I’m aware most viewers pass by too quickly to grasp the distinctiveness of the message. However, on average, every other day someone chooses to spend an hour or more reviewing my sites, considering what God has given to me to share. I thank God for each seed planted but especially for those that take root and grow. I can’t express how humbled I am that God allows me to participate in His plan to draw us closer to Him and closer to each other.

The immediate hurdle before me is this: midyear Apple will cease support of the primary software I use to create my website and post my podcasts, iWeb. I don’t fully understand what this will mean other than knowing that my process for communicating my messages is about to change drastically. I know other software tools exist, but the great benefit of the Apple tools were their simplicity. Their ease of use and seamless integration allows me to focus on content rather than technical issues. All of the Apple products were linked so I’ve never had to worry about coding/upload/import issues. I’ll spend the next few months planning and praying about the transition. I have no doubt that God will get the glory. I don’t ask that He protect my comfort zone. I simply ask that I remain in His will. Please join me in prayer.

Your Brother In Christ,

Larry

The Three W's of Acceptable Giving

By now it should be clear that I believe the modern church suffers from a lack of a comprehensive discussion regarding God's purposes and plans for our giving. Yet, from a practical standpoint, I am aware that people also suffer from communication overload. The more we are bombarded with messaging the harder it becomes to discern that which is important from that which is simply media hype. Understanding God's purposes and plans for our giving is important but I understand the crowded context in which that message battles for attention. Today, I offer at bite-sized message for sharing and personal consumption.

Some of us wonder what makes offerings acceptable to God. For ease of reference let me suggest that acceptable offerings are characterized by "3 W's": Willingness, Worship and Worth.

Willingness

God seeks a voluntary yielding of our gifts. 2 Corinthians 8:12 states that our offerings can be accepted if there is first a willing mind. Whether the willingness is our inward desire to give or simply our desire to obey God's call for us to give, each represents a willingness. Each honors God and is honored by Him.

Worship

Sacrificial giving was intended as a part of our worship, not as a separate act. Matthew 2:10&11 illustrates it best. The Wise Men came to worship Jesus and as a part of doing so they opened their treasures to the Lord. The altar was intended as both a place of worship and sacrifice.

Worth

For our gifts to matter to God they must first matter to us. In 1 Chronicles 21:24 King David declares " I will not ... sacrifice a burnt offering that costs me nothing." The Old Testament traditions of temple sacrifice required that the animal offered be an animal that the giver owned rather than a wild animal. The term sacrifice symbolized that the offerer gave up something, "sacrificed" something of worth to them.