Extravagant Generosity

By Robert Schnase, United Methodist Church bishop and author.

Giving puts us in a healthier relationship with our possessions and with the material world in which we live.We like making money, but we enjoy other things as well, such as the love of our family, belonging to community, a sense of meaning, accomplishment, contribution, and service. We enjoy making a positive difference in the lives of other people. But how do we maintain balance and perspective? How can we appropriately secure the basic needs of food, shelter, education, and health while also living with purpose? How do we avoid too much preoccupation with the things that do not ultimately satisfy, and cultivate those things that do? The intentional practice of generosity helps us keep our priorities straight.

Giving reflects the nature of God. We give because we are made in the image of God, whose essential nature is giving. We are created with God’s nature imprinted on our souls; we are hardwired to be social, compassionate, connected, loving, and generous. God’s extravagant generosity is part of our essential nature as well. But we are anxious and fearful, influenced by a culture that makes us believe we never have enough. God sent Jesus Christ to bring us back to ourselves, and back to God. As we “have in us the mind of Christ Jesus,”1 we become free. Growing in the grace of giving is part of the Christian journey of faith, a response Christian disciples offer to God’s call to make a difference in the world.

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Ecclesiastes 5:10 NIV – Whoever loves money never has money enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income. This too is meaningless.

2 Corinthians 9:7 NIV – Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

Malachi 3:8 NIV – Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me. But you ask, ‘How do we rob you?’ In tithes and offerings.