36Therefore be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful.37"Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.38Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you."
I believe that our degree of generosity is reflective of the way we allow Christ to control our hearts. His nature is consistent with that of our Heavenly Father, who loved us so much that he...gave His son in order that we might know Him. Jesus gave His life, and teaches us to develop an attitude of mercy toward other people. When we are blessed materially, we can recognize that He is showing Himself to be our provider, and He will direct us in the decisions regarding those possessions.
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The Bible teaches us about the importance of being generous with regard to the use of our financial resources. Consider the words of 2nd Corinthians 9:
6But this I say: He who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.7So let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity; for God loves a cheerful giver.8And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work.
Generosity is a force that flows from the character of Christ being resident in our hearts. And, a recent Religion News Service article features the results of a study on charitable giving. The organization, Empty Tomb, an Illinois-based nonprofit that tracks the percentage of church members’ income that they give to their congregation, released the report “The State of Church Giving through 2012: What are Christian Seminaries and Intellectuals Thinking — or Are They?”
In 2012, the latest year for which the numbers are available, church giving dropped to 2.2 percent of member’s incomes, the lowest percentage since 1968. Using statistics from international agencies and pictures of malnourished infants, report authors John and Sylvia Ronsvalles seek to illustrate the significant impact an uptick in giving from American churchgoers could make in the lives of the world’s poor.
Sylvia Ronsvalle, is quoted as saying that, “People are richer...They have a lot more to spend on. If the church is not giving them a real challenge, the church becomes less important.”
The Ronsvalles write, “From a global perspective, the vast majority of Christians in the U.S. are more on the ‘rich’ spectrum in Bible categories." They write that most of the poorest in the U.S. have more than the poor abroad, citing a study showing that an American with an annual income of $34,000 falls within the world’s richest 1 percent.
The report says that seminaries need to school future clergy on the affluence of American congregations, and remind church members of “God’s agenda to love a hurting world." In the Religion News piece, Sylvia Ronsvalle was critical of seminaries and divinity schools, saying that, “Pastors are not being prepared to effectively pastor their people within an age of affluence.” That contention is challenged in the article by the Very Rev. Ian S. Markham, dean and president of Virginia Theological Seminary. He said that alleviating the suffering of the poor is “a key aspect of the gospel,” but taking the seminaries to task for shortfalls in Christian charity overlooks the complexity of the problem and the realities of the culture “that are much bigger than any classroom experience."
I do say that the quantitative evidence from this study is strong, and can be a wake-up call to believers in Christ. We are called to submit our hearts to Christ in every area of our lives, and that includes the appropriation of our financial resources. The 2.2 percent statistic, representing the percentage of church giving to income, is particularly compelling - and concerning. And we can ponder some important points:
We can be challenged to reinforce a view that it all belongs to Him. If we are surrendering every area of our lives to God, that would include our stewardship - whether it be how we spend, or how we give. When we recognize that He has a purpose for the purse, then we can rely on Him to direct us in the appropriation of our finances.
We can also check our mercy component. Jesus taught that He desired mercy, and not sacrifice. He doesn't want us to merely go through the motions and focus on the outward expression of religious behavior, but He wants us to develop compassion toward others, and that compassion can move us to be more generous with the resources He has provided.
Finally, we can be appreciative of the resources that He has given to us. There are people in need all around us, and out of a thankful heart, we can bless others through our generosity. As the report points out, when we compare American income and possessions to other parts of the world, we do realize that many of us have been quite blessed. We thank Him for His material blessings, and in our gratefulness, we realize that we can hold on to those material resources very loosely, willing to share.
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