Nowhere in Scripture is this contrast more clearly articulated than in chapter six of Paul’s first letter to Timothy. Look at some of the key excerpts from this chapter:

But those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. But flee from these things, you man of God…  Instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited or to fix their hope on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy. Instruct them to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is life indeed (I Timothy 6: 9-11, 17-19 nasb).

The same material possessions that can produce a profoundly destructive, temporal and eternal outcome can also produce abundant blessings in both this life and the next. Which outcome we  experience is determined solely by our attitude towards them. According to Paul, if we see material possessions as an end in themselves, they will consume us (i.e. “burn and destroy”). To the contrary, if we see them merely as a means to an end – a way to bless others – they will actually greatly enhance our life (i.e. “cook and warm”).

Look at the severe words that Paul uses to warn us about what accompanies a life focused on material things – what I call the Terrible Ten.

1. temptation (v. 9)
2. snare (v. 9)
3. foolish and harmful desires [lusts] (v. 9)
4. ruin (v. 9)
5. destruction (v. 9)
6. root of all sorts of evil (v. 10)
7. wandering from the faith (v. 10)
8. many griefs (v. 10)
9. conceited (v. 17)
10. fix hope on riches [instead of God] (v. 17)

Paul is warning us with his Terrible Ten that riches improperly pursued and possessed will cause the pursuer to immediately and ultimately lose more than he gains. Alexander Pope seems
to echo Paul’s warning when he says, “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.” Paul is pulling no punches as he describes the destructive side of materialism that we either fail to recognize or simply choose to ignore. The fact is that the larger one builds his fire of possessions, the more dangerous the fire becomes. Remember that Paul had been rich himself.  He had personal knowledge of what he was saying here.

Maybe it was the awareness of this dark side of riches that caused Agur to request of the Lord, “Give me neither poverty nor riches; Feed me with the food that is my portion, that I not be full and deny You and say, ‘Who is the Lord?’ Or that I not be in want and steal and profane the name of my God” (Proverbs 30:8b-9). He is saying, “I don’t want to handle something that is as physically and spiritually dangerous as material riches.”

I have never been rich by American standards, but I will openly confess that I have seen signs of all of these Terrible Ten in my own life. And I suspect that if you are completely honest with
yourself, you have seen one or more of these Terrible Ten rearing their ugly heads in your life as well. It is almost impossible to live in such a materialistic culture and not be singed to some extent from the destructive flames of materialism.

Paul states that this out-of-control pursuit of riches is extremely dangerous. He instructs us how to avoid its destructive consequences with one simple word – flee (v. 11). This is not a fire that we are going to be able to control.  It is not a fire that is safe to be around. It is not a fire that will cook and warm. When you see your house on fire, don’t wait around to see if it goes out, don’t gather up your most precious possessions, don’t call for advice on what to do – just flee!

Many of us have already accumulated (to one degree or another) an abundance of material possessions, so how exactly are we to flee? Thankfully, Paul tells us exactly how to overcome the deadly fires of riches and how to turn its certain death into abundant life that will be both an immediate and an eternal blessing to all. Here is what he tells us about how to safely and successfully handle this raging fire without getting burned up by it. He instructs us to put on “fireproof gloves” when handling it. He tells Timothy: Instruct them to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is life indeed (6:18-19).

His “fireproof gloves” are the gloves of giving. If we handle material things with the fireproof gloves of generosity, we will never be burned by them. Rather, we can use them as a source of help, comfort and blessing to others.

What a glorious way to end Paul’s sobering teaching on material riches!  This destructive fire of riches can actually be redirected into a good, healthy and productive purpose. And it is accomplished by sharing our riches with others! Now our material prosperity will bring life and joy to both the giver as well as the receiver.  The fire will no longer burn and destroy; instead it can now cook and warm, not only for us, but also for all those with whom we share.

Do you know how to put out a blazing campfire?  You break up the fire by spreading out the logs. And by so doing the whole fire cools down and rather quickly dies out.  Likewise, when you start spreading out the “logs” of your material possessions by giving them to others, the consuming fire of materialism is cooled and is brought under control, no longer scorching all who come near. The more “fuel” you share with others, the cooler the flame of materialism within you.

Possibly my favorite two words that Paul uses in all his writings are his last two words on this topic – life indeed. Who wouldn’t want life indeed? And as is the case with so much of the spiritual life, it is a counter-intuitive reality that life indeed is found not in what we get, it is found in what we give.

Lord, open our hearts, fit us with fireproof gloves and compel us to spread around the material blessings You have entrusted to us, so that we may store up for ourselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that we may take hold of that which is life indeed. Amen.

Download PDF: A Blazing Fire

© 2011 Stewardship Ministries | All Rights Reserved

E.G. “Jay” Link, is the President of Stewardship Ministries, a teaching, training and mentoring ministry for professional advisors and ministry leaders to equip them to effectively serve believers who have accumulated surplus, material possessions. He is the author of three books, “Spiritual Thoughts on Material Things: Thirty Days of Food for Thought,” “To Whom Much is Given: Navigating the Ten Life Dilemmas Affluent Christians Face” and “Family Wealth Counseling: Getting to the Heart of the Matter.”

Solomon says it this way in Proverbs 23:7, “For as (a man) thinks within himself, so he is.”  In other words, you are what you think about.  Paul is much more direct in Romans 8:5-6 when he declares, “For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.  For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace…”  And because of this he adds a strong exhortation in Colossians 3:2, “Set your mind on things above and not things on earth.”

With all this said, we see that the real spiritual battle is in the mind.  The fact is by the time our sin manifests itself in actions, it is already too late – the battle is already over.  We have lost before we actually even committed the sin. Jesus shared this profound spiritual reality in Matthew 5 when He tells us that sin does not begin with the act of murder, but rather with the mere thoughts of anger.  He also adds that sin does not begin when one commits the act of adultery, but rather when one lusts over the woman in his mind.

There is an old gospel song entitled, Old Man’s Rubble which poetically expressed where the spiritual conflict really rages.  It says, “Deep within you there’s a spiritual battle.  There’s a voice of the darkness and a voice of the light.  And just by listening, you’ve made your decision.  ‘Cause the voice you hear is going to win the fight.”

So, with the sobering reality that the front line of the battle is in our mind, not our behavior, we must carefully assess how we are managing what we think about.  We must recognize that what is on our mind is the most accurate indicator of our real, spiritual health.  So, let’s evaluate what kind of mind we might have.

A Carnal Mind
Paul describes the unconverted, carnal mind in Philippians 3:18-19, “For many walk …that they are enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose god is their appetite, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things.”  One of the primary characteristics of the unbeliever is that his mind is set on earthly things.  This word “set” carries with it the idea of being “intent on or fixed.”  Their singular focus is on earthly things.

Any unregenerate mind left to its own unrestrained devices will focus on the here and now – what is immediately present.  And sadly our world is filled with masses of carnal minds that are set on earthly things and are constantly enticing us to join them in their fixation on earthly things.

A Conflicted Mind
It is with this conflicted mind that we may see shadows of ourselves.  Sadly many churches, as Alistair Begg expresses, are filled with what he calls “unconverted believers.”  They profess Christ, but are not changed.  They have the talk of a believer, but their mind and actions are that of an unbeliever.  This is not a new phenomenon.

Do you remember when Jesus was informing His disciples of His pending death and Peter (in his typical impetuous fashion) objected to such a possibility?  In Mark 8:33 Jesus makes a striking statement to him. Jesus orders, “Get behind Me, Satan; for you are not setting your mind on God’s interests, but man’s.”  Peter, devoted as he was to Jesus, still struggled with a conflicted mind.  His
mind was flip-flopping between earthly things and heavenly things.  And Jesus called him out when it had “flopped” on earthly things.

James describes an unconverted believer in 1:8 as, “being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.”  The conflicted mind waivers back and forth from a carnal mind to a converted mind, making him “unstable in all his ways.”  On Sunday morning his mind is on spiritual things and by Sunday afternoon it is back on earthly things.  He reads the Word and his mind is on spiritual things.  He then reads the newspaper and it is back on earthly things.  Back and forth.  Up and down.  In and out.

I fear that for far too many of us, this may be descriptive of our common state of mind – continually waffling between heavenly thoughts and earthly thoughts – “a double minded man, unstable in all his ways.”  Hence, Paul’s exhortation to “set your mind on things above and not on earthly things.”

You might ask how can we possibly live in a material world and not find ourselves thinking about earthly things?  It is not whether you are thinking about earthly things or not, it is rather how you are thinking about these earthly things that is so important.  Do you think about earthly things within the context of heaven and eternity or simply within the context of yourself, your own pleasure and merely the here and now?  We need to be continually in a heavenly state of mind even while we are in the midst of earthly things.

 A Converted Mind
Our goal must be to allow the Holy Spirit to take such total control of our mind that regardless of what we are in the midst of, He is controlling our thoughts.  Paul expresses this objective in II Corinthians 10:5 when he says, “We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.”  Every single thought captive.

Paul lists for us what we should be filling our minds with on a daily basis in Philippians 4:8, “Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell (take an inventory) on these things.”

A young granddaughter sitting on her grandfather’s lap asked curiously, “Grandpa, do you think I could live my entire life and not have a bad thought?”  Her grandfather replied, “No, honey, I don’t think anybody could do that.”  She then asked, “How about a year?  Could I go for a year and not have a bad thought?”  Her grandfather again shook his head, “No, honey, not even for a year.” Persistently, she inquired, “How about a day?  Could I go for a day?”  Again her grandfather answered sadly, “No, honey, I don’t even think you could go for a day without a bad thought.”  Not giving up, the little girl pressed, “How about a minute?  Could I go for one minute without a bad thought?”  Her grandfather smiled and nodded approvingly, “Yes, sweetheart, you could go for one minute without having a bad thought.”  “Then, grandpa,” she answered, “that is how I want to live my life – one minute at a time.”  Maybe that is how all of us should start living our lives – one minute at a time.

I love Isaiah 26:3, “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you” (esv).  The word “stayed” means something that is fixed in place or immovable.  We want to have our minds immovably fixed on Him – regardless of our immediate earthly environment or our current life circumstances.

How can we successfully maintain a completely converted mind?  The words of the great old hymn by Helen Lemmel remind us, “Turn your eyes upon Jesus.  Look full in His wonderful face.  And the things of earth will grow strangely dim.  In the light of His glory and grace.”  May we all keep our eyes and our minds fixed firmly on Him (Hebrews 12:2).

Download PDF: What’s on Your Mind?

© 2011 Stewardship Ministries | All Rights Reserved.

E.G. “Jay” Link, is the President of Stewardship Ministries, a teaching, training and mentoring ministry for professional advisors and ministry leaders to equip them to effectively serve believers who have accumulated surplus, material possessions. He is the author of three books, “Spiritual Thoughts on Material Things: Thirty Days of Food for Thought,” “To Whom Much is Given: Navigating the Ten Life Dilemmas Affluent Christians Face” and “Family Wealth Counseling: Getting to the Heart of the Matter.”

A gentleman recently asked me a thought-provoking question.  He asked, “Do you think testamentary giving is really giving?”  The answer to this question at first blush might seem quite obvious. But upon further contemplation, I’m not so sure it is all that obvious.  Think with me about this.  With lifetime giving you are voluntarily separating yourself from your possessions.  With testamentary giving you are involuntarily being separated from your possessions when you can no longer keep them.

With the former your possessions are leaving you. With the later you are leaving your possessions. The first is voluntary, the last is involuntary.  With one you are giving.  With the other you are leaving. Viewed this way, there emerges a huge difference between these two.  It has been my experience over the years that most people who have made plans to leave something behind for the kingdom after they eternally relocate could certainly make most, if not all, those gifts while they are still alive.  This being the case, an important question must be asked. Why don’t people do all the giving they can while they are still here?  I believe there are three reasons why people might opt for testamentary leaving instead of lifetime giving.

Reason #1: Uninformed
I am amazed how often believers work with unbelieving advisors (attorneys, money managers, insurance agents, accountants, etc.). For advisors with a secular world view the idea of giving is seldom a central part of their planning considerations.  (In many cases, they may actually be opposed to the idea of giving because their incomes would go down if you did.)  If you bring up giving, it is very easy to drop a testamentary gift into your plan since it requires no real strategic planning or sacrifice to give it.  We might say, “I’d also like to leave a little something for God in our plan.”  Simple. Easy. No need to carefully plan how to maximize my lifetime giving.  No need to stretch my faith in any way, because after all, I am not really giving anything away – which leads to the second reason why people might choose testamentary leaving instead of lifetime giving.

Reason #2: Uncertain
Uncertainty breeds fear and fear is one of the great paralyzers to lifetime giving.  There is often a spoken or unspoken fear that if I really get generous in my lifetime giving I might inadvertently give too much away and then run short of funds to live on later in life.  I have never known of anyone who gave themselves into poverty.  In fact, I don’t even believe that is possible.  But fear, driven by our fallen, lack-of-faith nature, kicks in reducing or altogether stopping our ability to joyfully and generously give while we are still “on this side of the grass.”  Testamentary leaving as opposed to lifetime giving, often can be a practical manifestation of fear – a lack of trust in God to provide for us in the future.

Reason #3: Unengaged
If believers don’t have a “fire in their belly” about something eternal; if they are not passionate about seeing God work in people’s lives; if they are not personally, spiritually and emotionally engaged in doing something with their lives and resources that will matter forever; then there will be little perceived difference between lifetime giving and testamentary leaving.  With either giving or leaving one may think, “Whenever I do give, I am sure I will do some good, somewhere, for someone in some way, at some time.”  In these cases, both giving and leaving can be devoid of any urgency or passion.  When it comes to your giving, would you be able to say with Jeremiah in Lamentations 1:13, “From on high He sent fire into my bones.”  If you are unengaged in Kingdom work, giving or leaving can feel about the same.

Even the unbeliever Andrew Carnegie had a goal to give everything he had away while he was still alive.  He even made the bold statement, “He who dies rich, dies disgraced.”  His problem was that he was so rich he could not give it away faster than his financial empire was making it, so in spite of all his efforts, he still died rich – disgraced.  Tom Monaghan, the founder of Dominos Pizza, is a compelling, contemporary example of a man who is trying to give it all away before he relocates.  His personal testimony of a millionaire’s vow of poverty is a compelling story regardless of our own personal financial situation.  So, should we choose to upgrade our testamentary leaving to lifetime giving, how do we decide how much lifetime giving we should be doing?  Here is a three step process to ratchet up your lifetime giving and experience more fun, more joy and more Kingdom impact during your lifetime than you ever dreamed possible.

Step #1: Imagine
…what you could do for the Kingdom while you are still here on earth.  Helen Keller recognized, “I can’t do everything, but I can do something.” And so can you.  If you don’t know where God is at work in the world today, start looking.  You will not have trouble finding Him working all over the world in amazing and supernatural ways.  Choose the work and the places He is working that most excite and motivate you.  Discover what unfunded opportunities are there that you could help continue or expand.  Imagine who or what could be changed for eternity if you were to give now.  Ask, “Is God calling me to help fund this Kingdom opportunity?”  Just imagine.  You could be part of something big, something eternal, right now!

Step #2: Plan
…for maximum Kingdom impact with all you have.  Most people have little idea how much lifetime giving capacity they really have.  Sit down with your advisors and charge them with the task of presenting you a plan on how to maximize your Kingdom giving and impact before you relocate to your permanent home with the Lord.  Start with determining what you have in the way of surplus income and assets.  These are immediately available for lifetime giving.  Then ask the Lord if He might even like you to reduce your lifestyle consumption so as to increase your lifetime giving.  This can be a scary question to ask because I think we all might be afraid our Lord might say, “Yes, I want you to reduce your lifestyle for My Kingdom’s sake.”  By developing this kind of a strategic giving plan, you will be absolutely amazed at how much you will be able to deploy of your income and resources, if lifetime Kingdom impact become the top priority in your planning.

Step #3: Trust
…God to take care of you while you focus on taking care of others.  This is where the “rubber meets the road.” Are you willing to trust God to take care of you so you can stop worrying about whether you have enough to take care of yourself?  When we can answer “Yes” to this question, we will now be free to focus on making sure others have enough.  Faith (trust) and fear are mutually exclusive.  One clear indicator that we are lacking in faith is when we become fearful about not having adequate provisions in the future.  Do you believe that God is powerful enough, wise enough and loving enough to take care of you without your help?  If God feeds the birds of the air and clothes the lilies of the field will He not all the more take care of you? (Read Matthew 6:25-34.)  When you can finally and fully trust God for your care and provision, you will never again need to worry about giving too much away during your lifetime.

Do you remember the story of the widow of Zarephath and Elijah?  With her last bit of provisions she fed Elijah.  And as a result God kept her bowl of flour and her jar of oil perpetually full. (Read I
Kings 17:8-16.)  “Our God’s hand is not too short to save, nor His ear too dull to hear” (Isaiah 59:1).  Think about it.  If we are willing to trust God for our eternity, surely we can trust Him for the short time we have left here on this earth.  If we will focus our energies on maximizing our lifetime, Kingdom giving, we will find to our delight that the rest of our lives will actually prove to be the best years of our lives!

Download PDF: Giving or Leaving

© 2011 Stewardship Ministries | All Rights Reserved.

E.G. “Jay” Link, is the President of Stewardship Ministries, a teaching, training and mentoring ministry for professional advisors and ministry leaders to equip them to effectively serve believers who have accumulated surplus, material possessions. He is the author of three books, “Spiritual Thoughts on Material Things: Thirty Days of Food for Thought,” “To Whom Much is Given: Navigating the Ten Life Dilemmas Affluent Christians Face” and “Family Wealth Counseling: Getting to the Heart of the Matter.” 

Let me ask you what I expect will be quite a thought provoking question.  A question you have likely never even pondered. However, it is one we should all be asking ourselves.  Here’s the question, “Has God’s abundant provision in your life become a bridge or a barrier to your ability to trust Him more fully in your life?”

You would think after having experienced such abundant, material provision from our loving Father for all these years, these abundant provisions would build for us a wide and easily traveled bridge – allowing us to confidently trust God in the future based upon what we have experienced in the past.  However, this does not seem to be what happens. These abundant provisions appear, to the contrary, to create a barrier that limits our ability to trust Him more fully. I have seen this in my own life and the lives of many others.  The more we possess the more likely we are to trust Him less. In other words, the more He provides, the less we trust Him to provide. Odd phenomenon, isn’t it?

I was once visiting with a young man who was struggling financially and he responded to my counsel by saying, “Jay, if I was making the kind of money you were making, I could trust God a lot more.”  I responded right back to him and said, “Doug, if I was making the kind of money you are making, I could trust God a lot more.” Doug had come to believe the false notion that his trust in the Lord would increase as God’s provision to him increased. In other words, he thought God’s additional provision to him would serve as a bridge enabling him to develop even greater trust and faith in God.  As logical as this thinking might seem, when provisions start exceeding our most basic needs, they most often end up becoming a barrier –  preventing us from trusting God more, not a bridge – enabling us to trust Him more.

This is exactly what Jesus was getting at when He made the very shocking statement to His disciples in Luke 18:24-25, ‘How hard it is for those who are wealthy to enter the kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.’

Those with a surplus put their faith in their surplus, so they have no need to put their faith in the Provider of the surplus. Solomon confessed, “He who trusts in his riches will fall…” (Proverbs 11:28). When we trust in the provisions of God instead of the God of provisions, we will fall short of living by faith.

I have been on many short term mission trips over the years and the one thing that continues to amaze me is the depth of faith these third world believers’ possess in the midst of what most of us would consider to be intolerable poverty. How can these impoverished believers be so entirely trusting of the One who has delivered so little material provision to them?  The answer is painfully obvious.  They have no material possessions to get in the way of trusting Him totally. For us the question is, “Are we going to trust in our stuff or are we going to trust in the One who has provided the stuff?” For them, the question is a good bit simpler. It is merely, “Are we going to trust in God or not?”

Do You Believe?
Let me ask you, “Do you believe God can and will continue to provide for all your needs in the future as He has in the past?”  I am quite sure all of us would intellectually respond with, “Yes, of course, I do.” David confirms this idea in Psalm 37:25, “I have been young, and now am old, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or his children begging for bread.”  Amen.  We all believe God can and will provide! Don’t we? Or, do we?

For many of us there seems to be a significant disconnect between what we intellectually believe about God’s ability to provide and our everyday attitudes about what He has already provided to us.

Let me take this line of thinking one step further with another question. If everything that God has currently provided to you so far were to disappear overnight, would your faith and trust in Him continue unshaken? Would you be confident that God would provide for you in the future as He has in the past?  We may at some point in the future find ourselves living on less than we are now, but are we certain that He will never leave us “begging for bread?”

If all our material trappings (and I use this word “trappings” intentionally) were to be stripped away for whatever reason, might it reveal to us that these “trappings” have indeed become a barrier to fully trusting in Jehovah Jireh (God our Provider).

Jesus makes this point in Matthew 6:31-34 when He says, ‘Therefore do not worry, saying, “What shall we eat?” or “What shall we drink?” or “What shall we wear?” For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow…’

To paraphrase, “Do not worry about tomorrow and what might happen if the stock market crashes, or if the economy collapses, or if you lose your job or your business or maybe even if you lose it all.” Jesus says, “Seek Me first and I’ll provide for you.”

Let Us Pray
How many of us would be willing to pray, “Lord, take away anything and everything in my life that is even the slightest barrier between You and me, including all that You have provided to me if necessary. If I have You alone, I have all I need.” That could be a dangerous prayer to utter, couldn’t it?

I was leading a discussion on this subject recently and a gentleman in the audience appeared quite troubled by the conversation. He raised his hand and asked quite hesitantly, “What if God told me to give everything away…?”  I looked him right in the eyes and said, “If you were certain God was telling you to give everything away and you did it, you would be the happiest man on this planet!” A “poor” man who is totally obedient and trusting in God is richer than the richest man on earth who isn’t.

Hebrews 12:1 exhorts us, “…let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us…” Jesus told us if our hand, our foot or our eye causes us to stumble, we should cut them off and throw them into the fire. (Matthew 18:8-9).  Likewise, if what God has provided to us is preventing us from fully trusting in Him, should we not likewise be compelled to lay them aside – to part with whatever we possess that is entangling us?

So, are your provisions a bridge or a barrier to fully trusting in Jehovah Jireh? Let’s not forget, we came into this world with nothing and we will all leave that same way (Job 1:21). May we all, in the time between our arrival on and departure from this earth, be careful not to unconsciously allow what we possess to become the object of our security, our trust and our hope. May we instead trust in the One who has so graciously provided it all to us to manage while we are here.

Download PDF: A Bridge or a Barrier?

© 2011 Stewardship Ministries | All Rights Reserved.

E. G. “Jay” Link, is the President of Stewardship Ministries, a teaching, training, and mentoring ministry serving churches, ministries and professional advisors, to equip them to effectively call those they serve to live the transformed lives of Kingdom stewards. He is the author of three books, “Spiritual Thoughts on Material Things: Thirty Days of Food for Thought,” “To Whom Much is Given: Navigating the Ten Life Dilemmas Affluent Christians Face” and “Family Wealth Counseling: Getting to the Heart of the Matter.” 

One of the most radical giving passages in the entire New Testament is found in Luke 21:1-4.  You most likely have already heard the story about the “widow’s mite.” Most people completely miss how profound this story and Jesus’ teaching on it is.  In fact, in His all too brief two sentence observation, He, as He did on many occasions on many different subjects, turns the Old Testament teaching on giving “on its ear.”

Here is the brief story. “Jesus looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the offering box, and he saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins. And he said, “Truly, I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.” (esv)

A person could all too easily read right through this story, be warmed by the sweetness of it and move on. But we dare not overlook the fact that in Jesus’ assessment, He reverses our commonly understood definitions of what makes big giving big and what makes small giving small. He changes the entire paradigm by identifying the widow as the big giver and the wealthy as the small givers – this poor widow has put in more than all of them

To fully appreciate the extreme contrast in Jesus’ comparison here, we need to understand that these two small copper coins this poor widow gave was the equivalent of 1/64^th of a common laborer’s daily wage.  Assuming a minimum wage for an eight hour day, her gift amounted to a measly ninety cents in today’s dollars. Contrast this with the huge sums of money that Jesus observed the rich dropping into the offering box.  Their giving may have even been bags of gold – surplus gold.  And that is his point.  Even the significant amounts of money the rich were parting with in their offerings would have absolutely no immediate or long term impact on their lives whatsoever. They were giving what they did not need and what they would not miss.  In their giving they were making no personal sacrifice at all.  The widow, on the other hand, would likely feel the impact of her gift by dinner time that very day.

Let me also note the percentage of giving Jesus endorsing here before we move on. You can check my math, but I believe it is 100%, not just some arbitrary or perfunctory 10% tithe. He is praising and promoting 100% giving. That alone is “off the charts,” extreme teaching.

A Modern Day Comparison
In order to better understand what Jesus is actually saying here, let me give you a modern day comparison to illustrate the extent of just how radical this redefining of what big giving is. Let’s say there are two members of your church.  The first member is a poor, elderly widow who receives $12,000 a year in Social Security and who gives out of her meager annual income $500 a year to the church. The second member is a successful businessman who is giving $50,000 a year to the church from his $350,000 annual income?

Comparison #1
If you compare the total dollar amount the two are giving, who is the big giver and who is the small giver?  Pretty obvious, the businessman is the big giver and the widow is the small giver. The businessman is giving 100 times more than the widow.

Comparison #2
If you compare their giving as a percentage of their income, you will see that the widow is giving a very modest 4% of her income – (an unacceptable amount in many churches’ theology). The businessman on the other hand is giving a very healthy 14% of his income.  If you compare the percentages of income the two are giving, the businessman is again the big giver and the widow is the small giver. The businessman is giving 3.5 times more.

Comparison #3
However, Jesus ignores our two “normal” methods of measuring the liberality of our giving and instead institutes a brand new giving measurement never before used.  Simply stated, here is Jesus’ new definition for measuring generous giving: Your degree of generosity is not measured by how much you give, it is measured by how much you have left over after you give. This is such a profound truth you cannot hear this statement just once and fully absorb it, so let me give it to you again. Your degree of generosity is not measured by how much you give, it is measured by how much you have left over after you give.

Using Jesus’ new definition to measure who is the bigger giver, we are not to compare their total giving (comparison #1) or even their percentage of giving (comparison #2), we are to compare how much the widow and the businessman have left over after they have made their respective gifts (comparison #3).

The widow has a meager $11,500 left over to live on for the entire year (less than $1,000 a month), while the businessman must “struggle” to make ends meet on his remaining $300,000 salary ($25,000 a month). The message is unmistakably clear here. Jesus is telling us that the widow who gave only $500 is a much bigger giver than the businessman who liberally gave $50,000.

Jesus throws us an incredible curve in his comparison in Luke 21 by identifying the poor widow, not the rich, as the bigger giver. 

The Most Generous Person I Have Ever Personally Known
I have worked with some pretty affluent families over the past 30 years and I have helped them make some pretty massive gifts to the Kingdom. However, when I think about the most generous person I have ever known, none of these serious and committed Christians reach the top of my list.

That top position goes to a ten-year-old boy named Jimmy Mitchell who was a member of my church back when I was preaching as a young man over 30 years ago. Let me tell you his story. One Sunday before church, I was standing up at the pulpit getting my sermon notes ready and Jimmy came running into the auditorium of our very small country church in rural Kentucky. He ran up to me with a one dollar bill in his hand and said, “Jay, look what I’ve got.” I said, “Jimmy, that’s great. Where did you get it?” He told me that after he mowed his yard, he decided to go ahead and mow old Mrs. Brown’s yard next door because she wasn’t able to get around very well. He excitedly exclaimed, “After I finished, she came out and gave me this dollar.”

He then paused and gave me a reflective look and said, “You know, Jay, I’d like to give some of this dollar to the Lord.” Touched by his comment, I replied, “Jimmy, I know the Lord would be so pleased that you would want to share some of that dollar with Him. How much do you think you would like to give Him?”

Even after over three decades now, I still remember his penetrating words like it was yesterday. He looked down at the dollar and then questioningly looked up at me and asked, “Do you think He would mind if I kept a dime?”

His words still ring in my mind to this day, “Do you think He would mind if I kept a dime?” Jimmy knew whose dollar it was and he was just hoping to enjoy some small benefit from it having passed through his hands on its way back to its rightful Owner for His use and purposes.

Even after thirty years, Jimmy Mitchell still remains the most generous giver I have ever personally known. Not because of the total amount of the gift – a meager 90 cents, or even the amazing percentage of his giving – 90%.  But because of the amount he had left over after he made the gift – one thin dime.

I have never given this sacrificially and extravagantly at any time in my life, have you? Can you imagine what the Kingdom of God would look like today if it were full of believers who thought and acted like Jimmy Mitchell?

Your degree of generosity is not measured by how much you give, it is measured by how much you have left over after you give. This new definition of what makes a person a big giver should challenge all of us to reassess our current level of giving to determine if we should still be thinking of ourselves as big givers.

It may just be that based upon Jesus’ revolutionary, new definition of what it means to be a big giver, some of us who may have previously thought of ourselves as big givers aren’t all that big of givers after all and many of us who likely have never thought of ourselves as big givers indeed really are!

Download PDF: Big Giver/Small Giver: Someone Reversed the Definitions

© 2011 Stewardship Ministries | All Rights Reserved.

E. G. “Jay” Link, is the President of Stewardship Ministries, a teaching, training, and mentoring ministry serving churches, ministries and professional advisors, to equip them to effectively call those they serve to live the transformed lives of Kingdom stewards. He is the author of three books, “Spiritual Thoughts on Material Things: Thirty Days of Food for Thought,” “To Whom Much is Given: Navigating the Ten Life Dilemmas Affluent Christians Face” and “Family Wealth Counseling: Getting to the Heart of the Matter.”  Mr. Link may be contacted by email at jlink@StewardshipMinistries.org.

One of the most misunderstood passages in the Bible is found in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount when He discusses giving. Here is what He actually says: Matthew 6:1-4, “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”

A common misunderstanding of what Jesus is teaching here has led many believers to conclude that unless your giving is entirely anonymous, you will receive no reward from the Lord for your gifts.  I once heard a gentleman (who was sharing his giving testimony) acknowledge that by sharing what he did, he would now be losing his reward.  Some people have taken this misbelief about anonymous giving so seriously they only give cash to their church so as to make it impossible for anyone to trace their giving.

Is this what Jesus is teaching?  I think not.  In fact, I think we will have missed Jesus’ point entirely if that is what we conclude. It is good to remember that chapters 5-7 are one sermon. We must not ignore the rest of what Jesus says. Context is key here. I think there are three important lessons about giving we can draw from Jesus’ sermon.

He Teaches Us to Give

We must not overlook the obvious.  Jesus tells us “when you give” – He does not say if you give. Giving is an expected and commanded part of being a follower of Jesus. His teaching here begins with the assumption that every follower of Jesus will be giving. He then addresses the dangers and pitfalls you must avoid when you do your giving.

I fear many immature and “non-giving” believers (and there are a huge number of them) use this passage as a way to not give and keep their non-giving a secret. If ever confronted with what they are giving, they can hide behind this passage that their giving is a secret. I once asked a church body this question, “Do you think if the giving records of each member of the church were to be posted on the bulletin board, anyone would be embarrassed by the other members knowing what their giving was.  We never did it, of course, but it does point out how many believers will hide behind this teaching to cover up their lack of generosity.

He Teaches Us to Give Purely

The point that Jesus is really trying to make here is about our giving motives.  He says that we should never do our giving, “in order to be seen by them” and subsequently to be “praised by others.” In other words, we do not want to give because of what we might get from it – like others having elevated thoughts of us or making complimentary comments about us or us receiving some special treatment because of our giving. Jesus is saying that if your motive for giving is to draw attention to yourself and you accomplish that, you received the reward you wanted. It is not so important whether your giving is known by others, it is more important to know how and why your giving was made known to others.

If you study Jesus’ entire sermon, you will see the progression of His message. In the last half of chapter five (verses 21-48), He emphasizes inner moral righteousness, providing us six specific illustrations of murder, adultery, divorce, oaths, revenge, and love.   In the first eighteen verses of this sixth chapter He emphasizes outward formal righteousness and gives us three representative illustrations of typical religious activities – that being giving, praying and fasting. These three activities are all connected in the flow of His message.

It is important to understand this because Jesus also teaches us to go into our closet (6:6, KJV) to pray and not to do it publically.  Isn’t it interesting that we stringently believe our giving ought to be the ultimate private act, yet, we do not apply the secrecy doctrine to prayer even though Jesus’ teaching on both of these practices are almost identical? He even adds one additional common religious practice of that day (one that might be good for us to revisit) when He tells us that your “fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you” (6:18).

Do you see the repetitiveness in each of these three illustrations? Do something with pure motives and do not seek to be seen and admired by others. Then God, who knows the true motives of your heart, will reward you in your giving, praying and fasting. Why do we put giving in a different category from the other two? Giving needs to be private, but we don’t hesitate to ask people to audibly pray and be heard by others?

Let me also add that if anonymous giving is the only proper way to give, how is it that not only was Jesus able to watch people giving their offerings in Luke 21:1-4, He was so close to the offering box that He could actually see the amount the widow gave. He praises the amount of her gift (making it public) using it as a lesson to challenge His disciples and countless millions of believers through the ages. So much for anonymous giving.  Jesus Himself blew her cover.  Did she lose her reward because of it? I think not.

Additionally, if giving was meant to be a secret, why are we told about the many believers who gave in Acts 2:45 and also Barnabas and others who gave recorded in Acts 4:32- 37? All this was public knowledge and even recorded by Luke for all future believers to know about.  You see, it is not about secrecy, it is about motive.  We should be motivated to give as an act of personal worship and not so we might be praised and honored by others for what we have given. If that is the motive, then that person has “received [his] reward.”

He Teaches Us to Give Purely to Glorify God and Motivate Others

Jesus’ sermon also teaches us what the proper motivation for our giving and good works should be. In 5:6 Jesus says, “In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”

If we keep our giving and good works under a bushel (5:15 – a secret) thinking this is what Jesus wants, how can we obey this part of His sermon?  We are told here to let our light (our giving and good works) “shine before others so they may see your good works…” Taken at face value it seems that Jesus is contradicting Himself.  We must understand that Jesus is addressing the giver’s motive (i.e. to “give glory to your Father who is in heaven”) and not who knows about the good gift. If in our giving and doing good we always seek to deflect the praise and glory for giving from ourselves (6:1-4) to God (5:16), acknowledging that, “every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights…” (James 1:17), we are being obedient to both passages. If we readily seek to deflect the praise from our known giving to the Father, then we will always be safe from others ever thinking more highly of us than they should (Romans 12:3).

Let me also suggest a second healthy motivation for actually making your giving known. Hebrews 10:24 tells us, “…let us consider howto stimulate one another to love and good deeds…” I can think of no more compelling reason to make our giving known to others than in so doing to challenge other believers to step up their level of generosity and experience the joy and the blessing that comes from increased giving.

Just think how much poorer we would all be if the likes of J. C. Penny and R. G Letourneau who both gave away 90% of their massive incomes during their lifetimes would have never let us know what they were doing.  Or, what about Stanley Tam (God Owns My Business) and Alan Barnhart who both have given their entire companies away to the Lord, choosing to live on modest salaries and annually funneling millions of dollars of company profits to Kingdom causes worldwide? What about all the Bible characters who fill the pages of Scripture who inspire and challenge us to greater levels of sacrificial giving? What if they would have all kept it a secret?  What a loss for us!

So Jesus’ message about giving is both clear and simple. 1. Give. 2. Give purely. 3. Give purely to glorify God and motivate others. Rather than concern yourself with who is aware of your giving, instead focus on who will be glorified by your giving and who you might inspire to join you in your giving adventures.  So, if your motives are pure – go ahead and let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. The more who are blessed and inspired by your giving, the better!

Download PDF: Letting Your Left Hand Know What Your Right Hand is Doing

© 2011 Stewardship Ministries | All Rights Reserved.

E. G. “Jay” Link, is the President of Stewardship Ministries, a teaching, training, and mentoring ministry serving churches, ministries and professional advisors, to equip them to effectively call those they serve to live the transformed lives of Kingdom stewards. He is the author of three books, “Spiritual Thoughts on Material Things: Thirty Days of Food for Thought,” “To Whom Much is Given: Navigating the Ten Life Dilemmas Affluent Christians Face” and “Family Wealth Counseling: Getting to the Heart of the Matter.”  Mr. Link may be contacted by email at jlink@StewardshipMinistries.org.

Over the years, I have watched many loving parents and grandparents agonize greatly as they watch the children in their lives struggling.  It doesn’t seem to matter whether these struggles are self-inflicted consequences of their own poor choices or if they are completely apart from anything they have done wrong. The agony in either situation seems just as great – hence the title Our Struggle with Their Struggle. Our natural, loving tendency is to intervene in their struggle and rescue them from whatever it is that is burdening them.

It is one thing to watch your child or grandchild struggle and not be in a position to help extract them from that struggle. It is an entirely different thing to see your child struggle, knowing you can rescue them, yet choosing not to.  At first blush the latter may seem extremely insensitive and unloving, but is it really? Let’s consider a couple of biblical stories to gain a broader perspective.

The Struggles of Joseph
Imagine you are Joseph’s father or mother.  You learn that your youngest son has been sold into slavery. You have the financial means to buy his freedom. Would you? Or, you hear that your son has been falsely accused and put in prison. Would you do whatever you could to free him from this struggle?  I think every parent would initially say, “Yes.” But, had you intervened and rescued your son, you would have led to the demise of the nation of Israel even before it became a nation.

Had you extracted Joseph from his struggles, you would have prevented him from ending up where he did – the second most powerful man of his day. Likewise, he would probably never have learned the Divine why behind all his trials? He gratefully admitted to his brothers who started his downward spiral, “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today” (Genesis 50:20).

The Struggles of Job
Consider the life of Job.  If you had been Job’s parent and you saw your son struggling horribly with the loss of family, possessions and health, I expect your grief for him would be almost unbearable. If you had the material means to be able to restore his health and keep him from being forced to sit on an ash pile and scrape his boils with pieces of broken pots (Job 2:8), I suspect you would have gladly done so.  But, had you chosen to rescue Job from this personal life-crisis, he would have never come to say after the crisis was finally over and he was totally restored two fold, “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear; but now my eye sees You…” (Job 42:5) It was the crisis itself that brought Job to a deep, intimate relationship with his Heavenly Father and without the crisis he would never have experienced God at this new depth.

God even stood by and watched His own Son struggle and die and did nothing to intervene.  May I suggest that sometimes our deepest level of love will not be expressed in intervening to rescue a loved one from a crisis (self-inflicted or not), it may indeed be more perfectly expressed when we choose not to intervene, even if we could.

I have talked with many successful people over the years and have seen one common thread routinely running through all their lives – that being they all went through some extraordinarily difficult times in their life journey in getting to where they are now.

What is so profound is how often these people share that it was in the midst of these most difficult days that they grew the most and learned their most important life lessons. They universally admit that it was these very struggles that have most defined who they are today.

Yet, when these same overcomers observe their children and grandchildren struggling to figure out life and how to make good choices, they choose to intervene and extract these struggling loved ones from the very struggles that could actually be the very best thing for them.

Let me ask you. What was the greatest gift the prodigal son’s father gave him?  Was it the premature inheritance? Was it his willingness to take him back after he squandered his inheritance?  Or maybe, just maybe, the greatest gift this loving father gave his son was the opportunity to fail – because it was in his total and miserable failure that he finally “came to his senses” (Luke 15:17). He finally learned what he needed to learn, but he had to learn it in a pig pen.

A wife once honestly confessed to me, “We have never allowed our children to fail.” She recognized that in continually snatching their children from failure, they had actually done their children more harm than good. Consequently, their children had never learned how to successfully overcome life’s struggles and failures.

Our goal as parents should be to do all we can to prepare our children for the road of life and not to do all we can to prepare the road of life for our children. The former will equip and enable them to succeed in overcoming life’s obstacles. The latter may, in fact, do just the opposite. As the old English proverb says, “A stumble may prevent a fall.”

The Struggles of the Caterpillar
When a caterpillar makes his cocoon and begins the metamorphic process of becoming a butterfly, it is faced with the daunting task of breaking free from the very cocoon that it created around itself. The butterfly must exert tremendous effort to finally break free from its self-created prison. Suppose you were to come upon a butterfly trapped in its own cocoon, frantically struggling to get free. You feel pity for it and lovingly decide to save it from all this “needless” struggle by simply cutting open the cocoon. (After all, you have scissors and can so easily make this struggle go away by cutting him free.)

However, in your attempt to shorten the butterfly’s struggle, you will have simultaneously doomed it to never fly.  What you may not know is that in the struggle to escape the cocoon, the fluids in its new body are forced into the wings. And with constant beating of the wings against the cocoon they are strengthened allowing it to fly. I think we all will admit that we do not grow when the sun is shining, the wind is at our back and life is easy.  We grow when the storms of life and the consequences of our poor choices pummel us into a broken and humbled sinner who needs a savior and a guide.

James 1:2-4 states, “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”  In Isaiah 48:10, God proclaimed, “Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.”  Paul confesses in Romans 5:3-4, “And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope…”

Can you relate to this…

I asked for strength…and God dumped such heavy burdens on me that I could barely carry them.
I asked for wisdom…and God presented me with numerous difficult choices to make.
I asked for patience…and God provided me with one frustrating situation after another.
I asked for prosperity…and God gave me nothing but a lot of hard work to do.
I asked for courage…and God set before me one frightening life-crisis after another.
I asked for love…and God filled my life with people who are very easy to hate.

Before we hastily rush in to rescue our loved ones from life’s struggles and difficulties, maybe we should first consider if this current struggle might be exactly what they really need most to come to know God more fully and to become all that He created them to be.

While our loved ones grow in their strength and faith as they endure their struggles, we can also grow in our strength and faith as we stand by them rooting them on and praying for them as they attempt to successfully break free from the cocoon of their struggles so they can someday “soar on wings like eagles” (Isaiah 40:31). Keep in mind, there is something much worse for your loved ones than facing struggles. It is that they might never learn to fly! Use your scissors carefully.

Download PDF: Our Struggle with Their Struggle

© 2011 Stewardship Ministries | All Rights Reserved.

E. G. “Jay” Link, is the President of Stewardship Ministries, a teaching, training and mentoring ministry for professional advisors and ministry leaders to equip them to effectively serve believers who have accumulated surplus, material possessions. He is the author of three books, “Spiritual Thoughts on Material Things: Thirty Days of Food for Thought,” “To Whom Much is Given: Navigating the Ten Life Dilemmas Affluent Christians Face” and “Family Wealth Counseling: Getting to the Heart of the Matter.”

If I were to quote the saying, “It is more blessed to give than to receive,” would you know who originally said it or where it can be found? It might come as a surprise to you to learn that this statement was made by Jesus. However, it is found in a very unusual place. Whenever you think of the statements of Jesus you immediately think of the Gospels and possibly His few comments in the book of Revelation. But this statement is actually found in the book of Acts 20:35. Paul quotes it in his farewell address to the elders at the church of Ephesus after his three-year ministry with them.

What is particularly interesting about this is that Paul tells the elders to “remember the words of the Lord Jesus . . . Himself” suggesting that these words must have been widely known among believers even though they are not recorded in any of the Gospels. The Apostle John does tell us in the last verse of his Gospel, “Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written” (John 21:25 niv). So, needless to say, there is much more that Jesus said and did than is recorded in the Bible.

With that as a background, let us consider the verse itself. This verse is just another example of the idea of human contradictions. Jesus was a master of these. He would tell people if they wanted to be first, they would have to be last. If they wanted to live, they would have to die. If they wanted to be rich, they would have to become poor. This is just another in a long list. And this contradiction is nowhere more obvious than at Christmastime when giving and receiving reaches its annual apex.

Just ask a small child whether it is more fun—“blessed”—to get presents at Christmas or to give presents at Christmas, and the answer will always be the same. In fact, they may even look at you with some degree of disbelief. How could you even be asking such a ridiculous question? What keeps young children up at night with excitement is what they are going to get the next morning, not what they are going to be giving. There is nothing wrong with a child who is almost delirious with excitement about what he will receive—it is very natural. And that is exactly my point. It is very natural. And Jesus is the master of calling us to the unnatural—like loving your enemies and forgiving those who hurt you.

Almost everything about being a follower of Jesus is unnatural or counterintuitive. In fact, it is a safe rule to follow that however you are naturally inclined to respond to a situation, respond just the opposite, and you will probably be responding the right way. You see, the spiritual dichotomy is between what is natural and what is supernatural—which is how we have been re-born to live. The natural man will say, “It is more blessed to receive than to give.” The supernatural man will say, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”

If we were completely honest with ourselves, we would all admit that it is a blessing to both receive and give. Notice, Jesus said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” When the blessing of receiving overrides the blessing of giving, life becomes warped, myopic, and egocentric.

The story of Ebenezer Scrooge is a classic example of the natural man turned into the supernatural man. Ebenezer’s life was consumed with getting and accumulating, while giving was an entirely foreign notion to him. In fact, it could be said he found the idea abhorrent to such an extent that when he was once asked to support the poor so they would not starve to death, he said, “Let them die and decrease the surplus population.”

He would squeeze every penny out of every business deal he could, continuing to pile up greater and greater wealth. Yet, his receiving of more and more wealth failed to give him what he was looking for which was true happiness or fulfillment in life. In fact, the more he acquired, the more miserable he became. Something was terribly wrong with this lonely, old man. And the deceitfulness of believing that receiving was the greatest joy had failed him completely. He was not happy. He had no friends. He had no joy.

But then that one fateful Christmas Eve, Scrooge is forced to face himself through three spirits who visit him, and he becomes broken and changed. I mean totally changed—in just one night. How that change manifested itself was in an immediate transformation of his understanding of the purpose for all his accumulated wealth. He now saw it as a resource to be used for doing good. For the first time in his life he gladly opened his hands to help others as quickly and generously as he could. In all his giving he discovered the one truth that had completely eluded him all the years of his life—that it is more blessed to give than to receive.

Now this stingy, odious, crabby, hardhearted old man is changed into a generous, pleasant, kind and caring gentleman who finally found tremendous satisfaction in life—no longer in receiving and accumulating wealth for himself, but in giving that wealth in ways that would change people’s lives and circumstances.

Sadly, King Solomon’s life outcome was not as positive as Scrooge’s. As one of the richest men who has ever lived on this planet, Solomon reflects back on all his material accomplishments in Ecclesiastes 12:1-11. Read it carefully.

I said to myself, “Come now, I will test you with pleasure. So enjoy yourself.” And behold, it too was futility. I said of laughter, “It is madness,” and of pleasure, “What does it accomplish?” I explored with my mind how to stimulate my body with wine while my mind was guiding me wisely, and how to take hold of folly, until I could see what good there is for the sons of men to do under heaven the few years of their lives. I enlarged my works: I built houses for myself, I planted vineyards for myself; I made gardens and parks for myself and I planted in them all kinds of fruit trees; I made ponds of water for myself from which to irrigate a forest of growing trees. I bought male and female slaves and I had home born slaves. Also I possessed flocks and herds larger than all who preceded me in Jerusalem. Also, I collected for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and provinces. I provided for myself male and female singers and the pleasures of men—many concubines. Then I became great and increased more than all who preceded me in Jerusalem. My wisdom also stood by me. All that my eyes desired I did not refuse them. I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure, for my heart was pleased because of all my labor and this was my reward for all my labor. Thus I considered all my activities which my hands had done and the labor which I had exerted, and behold all was vanity and striving after wind and there was no profit under the sun.

I have always wondered if instead of doing all this stuff “for myself,” if Solomon had done these things for others, would he have come to the same pessimistic conclusion about his life and his work? “All [is] vanity and striving after the wind and there [is] no profit under the sun.” I somehow think not.

With all of Solomon’s wisdom, there is one truth that he sadly missed entirely, “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35).

Giving is a natural outgrowth of mature love. We see this so plainly in John 3:16, “For God so loved…, He gave…” And we can all be thankful that His desire to receive our gifts of worship and praise was exceeded by His desire to give us a gift that we could never buy for ourselves. Romans 6:23 reminds us that “the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

A biblical approach to life cannot focus simply on maximizing what you will keep for yourself and your family. You must also strive to address the deeper issues of your life’s purpose—what can you do to maximize your blessing to others?

It is the introduction of this aspect of giving that brings purpose, meaning, and fulfillment into what would otherwise be nothing more than a set of difficult business decisions that need to be made in order to minimize the damage of taxes. It is this component that gives planning a heart. It is what gives it life.

If you want to experience the deepest meaning in life, let me encourage you to follow the converted Scrooge’s example—and not Solomon’s—in regards to your accumulated wealth.

Download PDF: The Deeper Meaning of Life

© 2011 Stewardship Ministries | All Rights Reserved.

E. G. “Jay” Link, is the President of Stewardship Ministries, a teaching, training and mentoring ministry for professional advisors and ministry leaders to equip them to effectively serve believers who have accumulated surplus, material possessions. He is the author of three books, “Spiritual Thoughts on Material Things: Thirty Days of Food for Thought,” “To Whom Much is Given: Navigating the Ten Life Dilemmas Affluent Christians Face” and “Family Wealth Counseling: Getting to the Heart of the Matter.”

Do you have a verse or two in the Bible that you rather wish was not in there? I think all of us do. Like, maybe, “love your enemies” (Matthew 5:44) or forgiving people “seventy times seven” (Matthew 18:22) or “regard one another as more important than yourselves” (Philippians 2:3)? These verses are like spiritual “thorns in the flesh” that continue to expose our lingering sinful, fleshly natures.

But there is another verse in the Bible that I also wish was not in there. And I expect when I share it with you, you might wish it gone too.

In the movie The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy, Scarecrow, Lion, and Tin Man are cowering before the Wizard. Dorothy’s dog Toto runs over to a curtain and pulls it back exposing a mere man pretending to be the great and powerful wizard. Do you remember what this man said to all of them as they stood there staring at him in shock? Still trying to perpetuate the fraud, still acting the part of the Wizard, he yells out over the loud speaker, “Ignore that man behind the curtain!” Well, after reading this verse, it will be very difficult to “ignore the man behind the curtain.” The jig will be up. The real you will be exposed. And if you are like me, when the curtain is pulled back, you will not at all like what others will see.

This troubling passage is found in 1 John 3:17 and it says (are you ready?), “But whoever has the world’s goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him?” Ouch!

“Whoever…”—Does whoever include me? Whoever?

“has the world’s goods…”—Any goods? Does He mean surplus goods that I do not need or want—goods that if I gave them away would not affect my lifestyle? Or does this include worldly goods that I like and want to keep?

“and sees his brother…” —Any brother? Living anywhere in the world?

“in need…”—Any material need? Like hunger? Or thirst? Or nakedness? Or sickness? Or persecution?

“and closes his heart against him…”—You mean if I refuse to do something about his need?

“how does the love of God abide in him?”—Are you asking how does the love of God abide in me?

Do you mean that unless I use my material possessions to meet people’s needs when I am aware of them, John is calling my love of God into question? I think it does. Ouch—no, double ouch!

Does this mean whenever I walk by a homeless person, I am supposed to respond to that need? What about when I see or hear about believers in other parts of the world who are suffering terribly? Is the love of God supposed to move me to do something about it with the worldly possessions I have at my disposal? When I hear about an orphan boy in Haiti who needs food, are you saying if the love of God is abiding in me, I will send him the $15 a month he needs?

Jesus said it this way,

“For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.” Then the righteous will answer Him, “Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?” The King will answer and say to them, “Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me” (Matthew 25:35-40).

Do you mean in a very real sense when I look into the face of a suffering and needy believer I am looking into the face of Christ? And if I were to help that needy person using my worldly goods, I am actually giving to Jesus? Proverbs 19:17 says, “He who is kind to the poor lends to the Lord.”

James 1:27 says, “Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress.” “Pure religion” is helping the helpless in their time of need. James goes on to ask in James 2:15-16, “If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,’ and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that?”

Or still echoing in the background is John’s piercing question, “But whoever has the world’s goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him?”

Is closing your heart against the poor as easy for you as it is for me? Are you able to see a need and in a matter of seconds, feel compassion and then almost instantly dismiss it with thoughts like, “Well, it is probably their own fault that they are in this mess anyway. They need to learn the hard lesson that God wants to teach them.”

Or, “If I helped them out with some money, they would probably just use it for alcohol or drugs, but not for food. That would not be a good use of God’s money.”

Or, “The needs in that country are so massive that my little bit of money will not really make any difference—so why give anything?”

Or, my personal inclination, just look the other way and ignore them. The feelings of sadness and pity for the plight of the needy that might lead me to actually do something about their need, I have learned, will pass quite quickly if I just ignore them.

A family I know had allocated to each member of the family a certain sum of money to be used to meet the need of someone whose path they cross. As they were discussing what and how the help was going to be given, one of them spoke up and said, “You know just in the few minutes we have been discussing this, I have already come up with several ways to help.” Other family members chimed in that they were thinking of ways to give too. Once you have a mindset that I have money to help and I want to get involved in making a difference in someone’s life that has a need, the needs and the opportunities seem to appear at every turn.

What has changed? Were these needs not there before this meeting? No, the needs were there. What was not there was the mindset that, “I am here on this earth to help those in need and I have some money set aside to do it with.” It is a heart change that all of us need. For some of us with substantial wealth, we may need major heart surgery to extract ourselves from our tight grip on our possessions so that they can be used to impact the lives of people whom God has put in our path and graciously given us the funds to help.

Just try it. Allocate a certain sum of money—for example $10,000—and give yourself sixty days to find and meet the need of a person or people who the Lord brings into your life. You will learn a few things with this little exercise. One, God will show you more needs than your $10,000 can meet. Two, you will be personally and deeply impacted by seeing the results in the lives of those who have been the beneficiaries of your kindness and generosity. Three, you will want to do it again. It is addictive! Start small and as God softens your heart and loosens your grip on your worldly possessions, your giving and need meeting efforts as well as your enthusiasm to give will grow.

After completing this giving exercise, get your Bible back out and re-read 1 John 3:17, “But whoever has the world’s goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him?” You will find that this verse no longer convicts and haunts you. It only affirms you and confirms your love for God. Now you can say, “I have the world’s goods and I am constantly opening my heart and my hands to help my brothers in need and in so doing the love of God is manifested in my acts of love and kindness to those in need!”

If we have a surplus and know people who have a shortfall—and everyone that is reading this book does—when we start giving to meet those needs we will rejoice over the words of 1 John 3:17 instead of feeling condemned by them. And that is a much better way to feel about the Word of God and a much better way to live.

Download PDF: How Does the Love of God Abide in Him?

© 2011 Stewardship Ministries | All Rights Reserved.

E. G. “Jay” Link, is the President of Stewardship Ministries, a teaching, training and mentoring ministry for professional advisors and ministry leaders to equip them to effectively serve believers who have accumulated surplus, material possessions. He is the author of three books, “Spiritual Thoughts on Material Things: Thirty Days of Food for Thought,” “To Whom Much is Given: Navigating the Ten Life Dilemmas Affluent Christians Face” and “Family Wealth Counseling: Getting to the Heart of the Matter.”