I said in my first installment of this series (“Giving is a Glorious Responsibility”) that giving is a chainsaw in the hands of a godly man. It’s one of the power tools that God wants His sons to know how to employ with all authority and wisdom. I believe this!
Giving is one of the great blessings God bestows upon His sons. According to Hebrews 2:10, God is in the process of “bringing many sons to glory”… that wonderful process (which concludes with our being entrusted with the Father’s business, a la the Psalm 2-based affirmation of Jesus when He was baptized) trains us in awesome Kingdom skills like:
- Enduring through suffering with joy and hope
- Putting the Bride before ourselves, like our hero John Baptiste
- Secret obedience and asceticism to that end
- Managing, deploying, investing, and harvesting resources
We tend to hang out on that fourth one around these parts, and indeed it’s where I’m swooping in now. I mention all the above because I don’t want you to just see giving as some kind of downer religious maintenance item that has to be checked off from time to time, like rotating your tires or changing your air filter. Au contrare: giving is more like dad putting a great big 54-ounce baseball bat in your hand then beating a trash can in the dugout to let you know a juicy slowball is about to come in belt high. (Sorry Astros but… you disgust me. THIS was my crew.) He WANTS you to knock it out of the park. The Great Cloud of Witnesses want you to knock it out of the park. Your wife, and future grandchildren want you to knock it out of the part. And Dad is telling you which pitch is coming. And He’s whispering, “CONNECT, son…”
THAT, to me, is giving.
So, from part 1, you’ve got the right attitude about giving. You understand it’s part of your discipleship. So… what do you give to? Well here’s how we explain it. First:
Give to your community of faith:
- This may be PARTIALLY represented by your local “501(c)3 religious organization” where you attend on Sunday mornings. It isn’t TOTALLY represented by that organization… unless the only people you’re connected to spiritually are in your same church club/organization. (If that’s you, well… you should get out more. But I’ll leave it for now.)
- My community of faith includes those people who’re working with me to do Kingdom stuff. For instance, me and some friends started a new ministry effort this past year. Those people are all part of my C.O.F.
- My community of faith definitely includes all the guys for which I have any kind of pastoral or mentoring role. When they have ANY financial need, my ears perk up.
- My community of faith also includes those men who lead me. This is an important point and I’ll break out some bits on it below.* Hang on.
- My community of faith also includes people on my street who I’m invested in spiritually but don’t go where I go on Sunday mornings.
- And people in my family who don’t live in my town.
- And some other good brothers who don’t live in my town.
- But I CAN NAME THEM ALL. This is important. They’re not a faceless mass. They’re PEOPLE and FAMILIES that wouldn’t make my wife go, “Him??” if I said I’d thrown some money at somebody in need. They are OUR COMMUNITY OF FAITH. The people who keep me strong, and who we, as a family, keep strong, encouraging and being encouraged. We’re connected to them by relationship and by faith.
This community of faith thing REALLY MATTERS:
Now all who believed were together, and had all things in common, and sold their possessions and goods, and divided them among all, as anyone had need. Acts 2:44-45
Now the multitude of those who believed were of one heart and one soul; neither did anyone say that any of the things he possessed was his own, but they had all things in common. And with great power the apostles gave witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And great grace was upon them all. Nor was there anyone among them who lacked; for all who were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the proceeds of the things that were sold, and laid them at the apostles’ feet; and they distributed to each as anyone had need. Acts 4:42-45
Allow me some observations about these two passages from Acts, which records the activities of the early church:
- First, they were “one heart and one soul”. They had full buy-in with each other on the things of God. To me, this assumed that they’d talked out So Many Concepts of the faith that they were in sync. They prayed for the same stuff, were committed to the same stuff, and were standing arm in arm, spiritually. (Create a community like that.)
- This wasn’t a commune. They obviously had their own property. (How can you sell a piece of land if you don’t, personally, own anything?) but!
- Their view on life was, “Yes each of our families has assets to manage… but at the end of the day, we’re all pulling together toward this unseen Kingdom. And we DO, sometimes, get thrown to the lions. So we’ll need to step in and help each other out from time to time, right down to food and rent. When that happens, it’s a GIVEN that we’ll go to bat for each other. We’re in this together, lock stock and barrel. So:
- They were practical in their love for one another. If I may walk through the list of capitals, they gave each other their
- Spiritual support (prayers, prophecy, instruction, correction, encouragement)
- Relationship energy (taking time to listen and empathize)
- Physical help (“Josephus! I’ll help you with that dung wagon!”)
- Mental aid (helping each other solve problems, using specialities for one another), and finally
- Financial help!
- So they were practical in their giving (and receiving) of one another.
You might not know this, but for us Christians, WE NOT TOO MUCH VERY GOOD at living this way with each other. I would submit that this is partially due to the center of our spiritual lives being moved outside our homes to the local church house… which makes us feel no agency or responsibility (which is one of the things I want to attack in this series), so we fail to act as a church community in these really (Biblically) normal ways.
Whoa, is this a soapbox I’ve ended up on? How did I get up here? Whoops.
Sorry gang, I lost my head there. Now let me give a last shout-out to *these guys, my aforementioned spiritual leaders. Again, these are the (older) men who have a pastoral presence in my life, who give me advice and feedback and counsel. Here’s a verse to start you thinking:
Obey your spiritual leaders, and do what they say. Their work is to watch over your souls, and they are accountable to God. Give them reason to do this with joy and not with sorrow. That would certainly not be for your benefit. Hebrews 13:17, NLT
So who are your “spiritual leaders”? According to this (and many other verses, try 1 Peter 5 on for size, or Psalm 23) passage, your spiritual leader is someone who takes responsibility for your soul, and watches over it diligently. Now, your soul is your mind, will, and emotion… so for someone to keep watch over it, they’d have to know you pretty well: they’d be familiar with your foibles, the pitfalls of your personality, your relationship struggles, the places where your mind works against you, etc. etc. I mean- THIS PERSON KNOWS YOU! And they might go, “Hey Arphaxad,, you’re not in a good emotional place right now… I don’t think you’re Shabbat-ing… when are you planning to rest?” Or, “Hey Friedrich, you were pretty sharp with your wife the last two times I saw you guys together. What’s going on there?” …Get it? They keep watch over your soul!
You got anybody like that in your life? Anybody who builds into you, lifts you up and encourages you to be more dedicated to Jesus, serves as a guardrail for you in your habits or character, or gives you good Biblical input? You know what you should do if anybody serves you that way? Here, I’ll let you look at the King’s Manual:
Let him who receives instruction in the Word [of God] share all good things with his teacher [contributing to his support]. Galatians 6:6 AMP
I take this to mean, FINANCIALLY SUPPORT THE PERSON/S WHO LEAD YOU SPIRITUALLY. I’ve never really talked publicly about this because it’s a TAD weird to tell the men I’m leading that this is the Biblical precedent, but believe me. It is. Maybe the people who keep watch over your soul are employed by a church-organization, and that’s how they receive their support. Okay, then give money to their employers, who give them the time to watch over you. But if your spiritual leader isn’t employed by a ministry thing… give money to them anyway. You SHOULD be giving hard ca$h dollaz to these people, not just ‘prayers’ or ‘blessings’. Write them a check!
But that’s just one component of the larger point I’m trying to make: GIVE TO YOUR CHURCH COMMUNITY. If you do, it’ll push you closer to a Biblical (read: more wonderful and fulfilling and God-glorifying) picture of church life. …And you might have to get creative! Maybe throw a lavish feast and invite everybody with some of that money, just to get started! (This is the budget that our Passover comes out of. Call us crazy, but we consider it GIVING to make a beautiful, extended evening for our friends to gather around the ancient story of the Lamb Slain For Us All.) But that’s just one idea of how you can give to your church community. You might also:
- Help pay for career training for somebody who’s trying to expand their horizons
- Contribute to a down payment of a new house for a church friend (we were even part of a community of faith who completely eliminated the credit card of a family, totaling about $25k. Did our friends make some mistakes in creating that debt burden? YES. But it was crushing them and felt like a bottomless pit. We walked them through repentance then just shot their debt to Kingdom come. It was terrific.)
- Replace that broken-down water heater for a church family
- Bless one of your mentors with a go-on-a-vacation! financial gift
- Write a big check to your 501(c)3 religious organization
- Give a regular contribution for an out-of-work family (or your extended family) until they get on their feet
- Invest in a church friend’s new business
Put your money into your community of faith! Giving starts at home, as they say… and THIS IS YOUR HOME. You got it?
“Wonderful, wonderful, Regis,” I hear you saying. “But where ELSE can I contribute? Is this all there is? Just the spiritual community, and that’s all?”
NO WAY JOAKIM! THERE’S SO MUCH MORE! Tune in nex times.
