Generosity

Have you ever read a certain Scripture and thought, “that’s perfect for this other person I know?” Have you ever read something in the Bible and thought, not about how it applies to your life, but how it applies to other people? Sometimes we sit in church and think more about 'people who need to hear this,' than we do about what God might be saying to us!

There's a passage in 1 Timothy 6:17-19 that I think it's particularly easy to do that with. It starts with the phrase, "As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty..."

There's not many of us that think about ourselves when we read that.

I think that’s a problem. No one, not even the richest person you know, thinks they’re rich. Why? Because there is always someone richer.

It's uncomfortable to think about, but I have to realize: I am rich. This passage is for me. The median household income of Earth right now is somewhere around $10,000 a year (you can check the median income of your area here). The media is the number in the middle. If you lined up all the household incomes, the one that is right in the middle would be $10,000. That means that HALF of the world is living on less that $10,000 a year. But here’s the crazy thing: none of them really live near me. Half of the world’s richest 1% of people live in the United States.

I’ve often explained this concept with a bag of skittles. It’s hard for me to consider myself rich, but here’s the deal: there are roughly 1 billion people in this world who live on less than a dollar a day. I on the other hand, as "not rich" as I would consider myself, have NEVER ONCE been unable to buy myself a bag of skittles when I wanted to. There are millions of people in this world living on less than that amount per day. As much as I don’t want to admit it, this passage in 1 Timothy is written…to me:

“As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life.”

What Paul is most worried about for the rich people, is that somehow the money has become the center. He wants something other than money to fill our vision. He calls us not to set our hope on the money, but instead set our hope on God. It really is a message about priorities. Paul is wanting us to move the money from the center, and put God in the spotlight. 

Paul doesn’t say, “Stop it with all the money, that stuff’s evil.” But he puts it in its proper place: our hope doesn't belong with money, but with God “who richly provides us with everything to enjoy.” God is not the enemy of good things, wealth, or pleasure, but God provides us with everything to enjoy. And as we begin to see God as the provider, the money slides off to the side. It’s there, but it’s not everything. And we aspire to something more than more dollars.

Generosity is not just giving money away. It’s giving of ourselves. It’s spending time with people. This is what naturally happens when Christ is the center of our lives. We begin to look to others, trying to find ways to help, to support, to uplift. We become rich in good works.

How do we build generosity in our life? It starts with realizing that we are serving a generous God.

The generosity of God is that He came and lived a perfect life among us. He gave up that life as a sacrifice– dying the death that we deserved so that we could be made blameless again. He sacrificed his life so that we could be made clean. Why would a God who was perfect die for a people who disobeyed? Because He loves us.

Pray this with me today:
God, center my life on you. Help me leverage every blessing I have for your name and your glory. Give me the courage to be generous and compassionate like you. AMEN.