I was touched this morning to read this article by Paul Kooistra, MTW’s director. This especially spoke to my heart as we support raise, and trust God to bring in the needed funds to leave for Japan. I hope you are blessed by it as well.
The Bible is God’s inerrant word. Therefore, we know that every word it contains is included for our edification. As our nation and the whole world, for that matter, goes through one of the most significant financial upheavals in recent memory, I believe God is speaking to His people out of the eighth chapter of 2 Corinthians. It is there that Paul holds up the Macedonian church as an example of Christian stewardship. He writes, “We want you to know about the grace of God given to the Macedonian churches. Out of great trail and extreme poverty they gave with overflowing joy in extra generosity.”
Clearly, Paul believes there is much we need to learn from the churches in Macedonia. First, that stewardship for the Christian is never first and foremost about how much money we have. Jesus taught the same thing when He contrasted the widow and her mite with the large contributions of the Pharisees. Giving is primarily an act of worship. It certainly was for the Macedonians. They had great needs and their giving out of this need was an expression of their faith.
Giving that grows out of faith produces praise and honor to God. It affirms that everything we have is a gift from God. It acknowledges that God’s care for us is perfect. Such faith declares that we lack nothing we need. Recently, a woman related how God provided for her to pay off a medical bill. She said, “I prayed, and when I received the money I simply broke down and cried for joy,” I thought this was a beautiful expression of gratitude and worship. Then I thought, “Should not all of God’s people experience such feelings almost daily? After all, God supplies what we need in the same fashion through our jobs, our health, the food we eat, His Word, and hundreds of ways that we don’t even recognize.”
Paul writes in his letter to the Philippian Christians that he has learned how to worship God when he has more than he needs and when he has less than he needs. He is able to do this through the strength he receives from his Savior (Phil 4:13). Paul teaches us something very important about giving. It is a gift of divine grace (Rom 12:8), but Paul tells us it is a cultivated gift. The gift of giving as an act of worhsip is, as he puts it, one that he “learned” (Phil 4:11). I believe that God uses the times when we have less far more than the times when we have plenty, to grow the gift of giving. He did it with the Macedonians and He will do it in us.
Paul then tells us that it is through the power of Christ in his life that he is able to give out of faith rather than simply out of surplus (Phil 4:13). Why is this important? Because, where your treasure is, there your heart will be also (Matt 6:21). We give to honor and worship God. If this is true, and it is, then you can see how important it is to it right.
