Freely you have received...

             The last of the stir fry has been scraped from the plates, and we’ve closed our Bibles, sung a prayer, spoke a prayer.  Now Leah passes out her gifts. 

            “Willem…”  Her brother grabs the wrinkled gift bag with a grin.

            “Dad…”  She hands him a small, oblong package wrapped in Scotch tape more than anything else.  I glance at my husband, knowing that he’s having a hard time not thinking about the lawn mower that needs fixing.  I study the rice that sprinkles the floor.  Try not to think about the dishes stacked up.

“Marie…”  (A giggle).

“Nathan…and Mom.”  My package looks suspiciously similar to my husbands’.

“Aw…even one for me!  Thank you, Marie!”  Leah plops into her chair, smiling, holding a gift that she herself wrapped, maybe even made herself?

We open our gifts.

 “I took two of my best pencils out of my box from school for you guys, Mom.  See your name on the heart in the middle, Dad?”

“Very nice, Leah, thank you.”  B.J. smiles at her.

“You can use it at school!”

“You’re right, I can.”

For Willem, a paper airplane.  For Nathan, a tiny stuffed dog won at Family Fun Night last spring.  For Marie, a little doll given Leah by a cousin.  “I don’t play with much anyway, Mom,” she says, nodding her head in my direction.  Then Leah’s gift, which she opens bit by bit, commenting on the wrapping, speculating as to what might be inside.  She pulls out a turtle that I saw her help Marie with earlier in the day – the kind made from plastic beads fused together with the iron, my iron, just before setting the table.  “This is beautiful, Marie!  I just can believe that you came up with how to do this pattern on the shell.  Can you believe it, Mom?  She’s only three years old!  Thank you Marie!”  She squeezes her little sister’s forearm, but Marie is too busy wiggling the limbs of her new dolly to pay attention.

This, a regular occurrence at our house.

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Leah is probably the most generous person I know.  She is constantly crafting gifts or going through her little stash of knick-knacks to give away to friends at church or school.  We don’t go anywhere for supper without bringing gifts with us – weeds from the ditch in a vase, beaded earrings, braided bracelets, hot-pads off her loom, and many things paper – drawings, airplanes, picture frames (“it’ll stand if you bend that back piece out just right….”) We give our children $4 to spend each month (in addition to $4 to give and $4 to save).  In August, Leah gave $3 of her 4 spending dollars to the babysitter we had over during the very first week of the month.  “I can’t think of one thing I’m going to need to buy this whole month long, Mom,” she said.  “I’d rather give it to Beth.”  When we got home late that night, Beth handed me Leah’s three dollars: “I’m not going to take her money!” she insisted.  But I urged her, “Please, keep it.  I want to encourage Leah's generosity."

I am taking lessons from her, you see, and I’ve got a long way to go.

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How about you?

It’s one of those things we readily assume about ourselves, isn’t it?  That we’re generous.  The same way we assume that we are likeable, or that our method of meal planning is the most effective.  But what are we doing with all the money that God’s entrusted to us to manage?  What we do with His money, after all, shows – and determines – where our heart is (Matthew 6:21).

In the Old Testament, God required that all Israelites – yes, all – tithe.  That is, the first ten percent of their gross income went directly to God (Lev. 27:30).  Any freewill offerings were given above and beyond that.  Some debate whether or not New Testament saints are required to tithe.  Consider this: on average, professing Christians in the United States today give away 2.5 percent of their income.*  2.5 percent!  Scripture teaches that the ministry of the Spirit is more glorious than that of the law (2 Cor. 3).  Materially, we are blessed beyond measure.  And yet, we give away less than one fourth of what the Old Testament saints were required to give.  We are guilty of robbing God (Malachi 3:8-10).  Perhaps the tithe can be used as a tutor to teach us to give, just as the law is a tutor to bring us to Christ.* 

                What if you heard of man who had great wealth, and strategically invested his money to provide for himself and his family for many years to come?  Sounds like someone who’s attained the American dream of financial independence, doesn’t it?  What if you heard of an individual who gave the last of his money to the offering at his local Church?  You or I might want to pull that person aside and give him a little talk on principles of wise financial “stewardship,” wouldn’t we?  Jesus called the first man a fool (Luke 12:16-21).  The second He held up as an example (Luke 21:1-4).

                Our first mistake when we hear the parable of the rich fool is to assume that we are not rich.*  I know, I’ve been there.   My husband and I married while in college, and now, 8 brief years later, we live on a Christian school teacher’s salary with 4 children under the age of 6, the first of whom now attends a Christian school.  The home we rent used to be a country schoolhouse, and when it rains hard we have to set buckets out in the dining room.  We drive vehicles that have seen decades of wear and tear, and scrape together what extra we can to pay off student loans each month.  I know what it’s like to look around and decide that compared to everyone else, we’re poor.   But when we file our taxes each year, a lump forms in my throat when I look at the figure in the “Gross Income” column.  We are going to answer for what we did with all of those dollars?  Where did it all go? 

                Our second mistake when we hear the parable of the rich fool is to assume that we’re not fools.*  For us, we lived for years assuming that all we had to do was pay the monthly budget amount at our church, for then we’d tithed on my husband’s take-home pay.  More recently we sat down to take inventory of our giving on all of our income – income from my husband’s summer job, his Saturday job, money that friends gave us when our daughter was in the hospital a few weeks ago…  When we added all that up and took off the top ten percent, we had hundreds of dollars that belonged to God to give away.  And you know, for the first time in my memory, when we gave all that away, I knew it: we are rich.

                I do not tell you this to earn your praise for our generosity.  I know what the Lord teaches in Matt 6:1-4.  And I'm embarrassed at our lack of generosity in the past.  Rather, my intention is to spur you on to love and good works (Hebrews 10:24).  Why is that we are ready to discuss how much we “saved” at the mall last Saturday but so unwilling to talk about what we are doing to meet the needs of the Church and the poor?  If we are worried about what others might think of our lack of generosity, shouldn’t we fear God, who knows exactly how we handle our finances, and whose standards are much higher?*

                What if God doesn’t increase our income so that we can increase our standard of living?  What if He increases our income so that we can increase our standard of giving?*

Freely you have received, freely give.

(Matthew 10:8)

*More ideas/quotations from Alcorn's  Money, Possessions, and Eternity.