THE "HOW" OF GIVING (PT. 1)
Know how to tell if you TRULY love someone? Here’s one surefire sign: you’re willing to give them the very middle of a freshly-baked cinnamon roll. Right out of the oven. Pillowy soft and couched inside layers of more cinnamon-y goodness. Perfectly positioned to receive the maximum amount of cream cheese frosting. That’s true love.
When you love someone this much,
you want to give them the best part.
What if we thought about giving this way? This love-fueled desire that eclipses all sense of self-gratification is what Paul describes in 2 Corinthians 9:7: “Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” We love God desperately and want to give Him the best part of what we’ve been entrusted.
This whole thought tugs at an Old Testament concept called “Firstfruits.” These were special offerings dedicated after a bountiful harvest or after new property was acquired. Israelites would offer the first portion of their harvest before dealing with the rest. Because when you love someone this much, you want to give them the best part.
We want to be this kind of people, don’t we? We want to freely offer the first and best part of everything to God. But if we’re honest, giving often triggers an inner wrestling. We count the cost, and sometimes we find we’re holding more tightly to our resources than we’d like to admit. We live in a culture saturated with “FOMO” (fear of missing out), and we can’t help but let our minds drift to the alternative ways we could use the portion we’ve considered offering. Giving exposes the contents of our hearts.
Why? Because giving is tied to our affections. People don’t just wake up one day and decide to be radically generous. Something happens to them at a heart-level first. There is an affection that has motivated and stirred their heart to give.
After all, we see the supreme example of this motive-pattern in the heart of our Heavenly Father, who so loved the world that he gave His only Son (John 3:16). And as His image bearers, we give because we love. We are willing to absorb a personal cost because we love. Just like that prized portion of the cinnamon roll, we’re willing to sacrifice it, not begrudgingly, but cheerfully, out of anticipation of the joy it will bring to the one we love.
When love motivates the gift, the sting of the cost is overwhelmed by joy.
This principle that we give because we love will motivate men to purchase expensive engagement rings, women to endure the pain of childbirth, and families to tenderly care for a grandparent gripped by dementia, just to name a few examples. Our love leads us into profound and even joyful sacrifice.
How, then, do we stimulate this kind of giving that joyfully surrenders the best part? We cultivate a love for God that places Him first at the center our hearts and lives – a love that supernaturally reorders our affections. In 2 Corinthians 8, Paul writes about the motivation behind the giving of a remarkable church in Macedonia:
“We want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia, for in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. For they gave according to their means, as I can testify, and beyond their means, of their own accord, begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints— and this, not as we expected, but they gave themselves first to the Lord and then by the will of God to us.” (2 Corinthians 8:1-5)
Out of love, the Macedonian church had given themselves to God before they gave of themselves to bring relief to the believers in Jerusalem. It’s Biblical to assume that they were in fact able to display such horizontal generosity because they had already given all they had and all they were to God vertically. And the same is true of us. As we increasingly surrender every aspect of our lives to God, we will only find it fitting to gladly offer up our finances to Him as well.
A Prayer of Response:
God, we know that You can stir our affections, because You have already stirred them toward You. By Your grace, please increase our affection for You to the degree that we earnestly long to give You the best part of our lives, including our financial lives. When we are tempted to grieve the cost, would You replace the sting with reminders of the joy that comes from blessing Your heart and being used by You. Let our love for You overflow in generosity with all we are and have.
Our leadership team at FBC highly recommends this small volume by Randy Alcorn, The Treasure Principle, as a tool to help you guide your heart in honoring God’s design for generosity. You can purchase a copy by clicking on the button below.
