the expectation of the wicked in wrath.
Some give freely, yet grow all the richer;
others withhold what is due, and only suffer want.
A generous person will be enriched,
and one who gives water will get water.
The people curse those who hold back grain,
but a blessing is on the head of those who sell it.” NRSV
The heart of the true believer is generous. And not as some teach, that if we give, God will make us wealthy and able to have everything that our hearts would desire on this earth. That, I believe, is a false gospel for it places our hearts and our minds on the temporary things of this earth, rather than on the lasting things of God. Instead, as believers, we are generous because we are aware of how temporary this life is and how much God has prepared for us in the unending years in heaven. Thus, if we give here and that causes lack, what does it matter? The things of this earth are useless because they don’t last.
I am a special education teacher and I had a student who had a compulsion to collect things. He would go out on the playground and fill his pockets with all kinds of junk: dirty pieces of string, old cast-off scotch tape, little rocks, even pieces of food that fell from the lunch tables. His mother would sign with discouragement when she would find his clothes, even his backpack, filled with this junk. He didn’t need to collect trash. His parents were fully able to give him nice things of value . . . once he got home.
I think that Father God must sometimes think the same of us. We become so focused on the “junk” that we can collect here on earth, forgetting entirely about the wonderful treasure that He has stored up for us . . . once we get Home.
“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:19-21 NRSV).
Where your treasure is . . . What is our treasure? If our treasure is God’s heart, then we will easily be able to be generous with our things, our money, our time because they aren’t our treasure. Our treasure—if it truly is God’s heart—cannot be taken from us. However, if our treasure is our money, our home, our stuff, then we will not easily give it.
“The desire of the righteous . . . “ What is our desire? To accumulate here on earth? Then that desire isn’t righteous; instead, we are holding onto things of this world. But if our desire is to please God, to truly know Him, to obey His Word, then our actions will become good to others. We will be generous with everything that we have, everything that we are, because we know that our Father will replenish anything that we need. If we have need of it, He will give it. If He doesn’t give it, we didn’t need it anyway.
© 2008 Robin L. O’Hare. All Rights Reserved. International copyright reserved. This study may be copied for nonprofit and/or church purposes only without permission when copied in its entirety (including this notice).
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