Developing a Generous Spirit<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
Dr. Randy White
www.RandyWhiteMinistries.org
I've never met anyone who was proud of being stingy. In fact, I'm not sure I've ever met anyone who even admitted to being stingy. But in spite of our penchant against admitting stinginess, I have met many stingy people!  It seems that we are born with a clenched fist, and we struggle to release the grip.  Our natural born material philosophy becomes "Get all you can, can all you get, and sit on the can!"
How can we develop a fist-opening attitude and release the material possessions which we hold to so strongly? How can we develop a generous spirit?
In Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, he instructed them to gathering an offering for the saints in Jerusalem. On the first day of the week, the Corinthian believers were to set aside a free will offering that Paul would then take to Jerusalem. Paul's second letter to the Corinthians gives believers today an incredible insight into a generous spirit.  This article considers Paul's teaching in 2 Corinthians 8:1-7.

 
You may remember that Paul and Peter had a strong disagreement over the theological matter of circumcision.  After dealing with the disagreement in a healthy way, we learn in Galatians 2:10 that the leader of the Jerusalem church, the Apostle James, gave a plea, "Don't forget the poor." Paul was very faithful to this heartfelt cry of James.
Perhaps at the time of the confrontation James was already foreseeing the day when the Jerusalem believers would be in dire straits financially.  Christians had been ostracized by the Jewish population for their acceptance of Jesus as the Messiah; no friend was found in Rome either. The believers had lost families, homes, businesses and careers. Some had even lost their lives. When famine set in, the believers of Jerusalem quickly became the hardest hit. For the modern American believer, this may be hard to understand because we live in an environment in which the church, with all its flaws, would still act as a safety net if our world began to collapse around us. To understand the plight of the believers in Jerusalem, consider a native born believer in one of the radical Muslim countries of the Middle East. Already on thin ice, if push came to shove, they would quickly be shoved.
In Romans 15:25-27, Paul expresses his belief that the Gentile believers, owing their spiritual existence to the Jewish believers, have a great financial debt to these Jewish believers. The churches of Macedonia, for example, were the first to aid the Jewish believers. These Macedonian churches were continually portrayed as generous churches.

 
From where did the generosity of the Macedonian churches arise? Paul attributed their generosity to one thing: GRACE.  Paul begins his discussion about the Macedonian generosity by saying, "we wish to make known to you the grace of God which has been given in the churches of Macedonia."
When we hear the word grace we typically think of saving grace, but, in this passage, this is not the kind of grace in mind. Rather, Paul speaks of the "manifold grace of God."  One of the graces of God is the grace of generosity. Just as you have sought the grace of God in salvation, you should seek the grace of God in generosity.

 
Having been given the grace of generosity, the Macedonian believers had an abundance of joy, though in deep poverty (2 Corinthians 8:2).  In math, a negative combined with a positive has a negative effect, whether in multiplication or addition. Without grace, the positive (an abundance of joy) would be offset by the negative (a deep poverty). In addition, we are told that this positive and negative overflowed in the life of the Macedonians "in a great ordeal of affliction." Now we have a positive and a negative flowing through a negative filter. In any kind of natural situation, the two negatives would have completely eradicated the positive. This however was not a natural situation because the grace of God was added into the equation. In spite of the odds, the negative and the positive flowed through a negative filter and God's grace caused it to miraculously overflow into "the wealth of their liberality." In fact, they were so generous that they gave "according to their ability, and beyond their ability."
In the story of the widow's mite, the rich benefactors of the temple treasury gave "out of their surplus." The widow, however, gave "out of her poverty" (Luke 21:4).  In the same way the Macedonian believers gave "beyond their ability." They were not forced to do so, nor were they placed under a guilt trip by the Apostle. Rather, they "gave of their own accord," even "begging us with much urging for the favor of participation in the support of the Saints" (2 Corinthians 8:4). They so longed to express the grace given to them that they begged for the grace of participation in the offering.

 
Outside of God's grace, what was it that motivated this generosity on the part of the Macedonian believers? A key support structure is given in 2 Corinthians 8:5, where we are told, "they first gave themselves to the Lord and to us by the will of God." The Macedonians had sold out to the Lord and to His Apostles, enabling them to generously release the few possessions they had.
Have you ever noticed that it's easier to give away someone else's money? I don't find it difficult to be generous with other people's stuff! As children we were this way. As long as it was mom and dad's money, we thought nothing of spending it like there was no tomorrow. But if it was our allowance, we suddenly became miserly. When the Macedonians gave themselves to the Lord and his Apostles, they actually freed themselves to generosity. No longer were they giving their own money, now they were giving the Lord's!  And the Lord is rich in houses and lands, holding the wealth of the world in his hands! The Macedonians found themselves in the wonderful position of being distributors of God's wealth.
Have you ever given your possessions to the Lord? Have you ever relinquished control and become a steward rather than an owner? Have you ever removed your name on the title deed of your possessions? If you have not, I venture to guess that any giving you do is done grudgingly and under compulsion. You may give large amounts of money, but it is likely for reasons of guilt or some perceived spiritual legality. What a wonderful difference it would make if believers around the world relinquished control of all their worldly goods to the Lord Jesus Christ. One of the old poets said it well –
Nothing that I have, my own I call.
I hold it for the Giver.
My heart, my strength, my life, my all,
Are His and His forever.
 

 
Paul brings it to reality when he says, "we urged Titus that as he had previously made a beginning, so he would also complete in you this gracious work" (2 Corinthians 8:6).  The offering instituted by Paul in his first letter was now to be collected. It was time for the Corinthian church to make good on their pledge.
 
Paul encouraged the church in the abounding of faith, in their proclamation of the Word, in their Biblical knowledge, in their zeal, and in their love. He wanted them to abound in the work of generosity as well. Though I have my doubts, I hope that it could be said that the church today abounds in faith, proclamation, knowledge, zeal, and love. My fear is that our faith is thin, our proclamation is timid, our knowledge is pitiful, our zeal quickly runs dry, and our love, if it is there at all, is displayed in particularly hateful ways! And if we have failed to abound in these spiritual virtues, we have certainly failed to abound in the working of generosity as well. The average gift of the average churchgoer is just a smidgen of what would have been given under the law.
 

Would you join me in the prayer that God's grace of giving would so abound in us that we begin to overflow in a wealth of liberality, in spite of the odds?
 
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