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Archives: July 2010
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Archives: July 2010
Does God take visa?
By Mike Pilavachi
I’m not sure why, but it’s easy to feel funny when the subject of money comes up. As a Christian I get twitchy, nervous even, at the thought of it, as if by bringing it out into the open I admit that I have a problem with it. Like much of our faith, the teaching on it is perfectly clear and simple, but my reaction is pure confusion. The main question—am I generous enough?—can only ever call up one answer (and it’s not “yes”), but after my sheepish reply come a thousand more questions: How much is enough? Can I give too much? Is it wrong to receive gifts and nice things? Shouldn’t I give it all away and live on the street? What do I really need to live on?
A few years back I was in South Africa, traveling around to different churches, doing meetings and that sort of thing. We saw a lot of wealth, incredible countryside and a lot of poverty. You can probably tell what’s coming next, but there was a church that we visited that made me completely change my view on giving. As we stood in the poorest church of the trip—a shack in the middle of thousands of other shacks, making up a township called Inanda—we saw people who had less to live on than we spend each year on movie tickets giving away all they had. As the pastor announced the start of the collection I got into my UK Collection Mode: face as miserable as a bald hippie, hands as shy as a monk in a girls’ dormitory. I looked around and saw that I was alone in my grumpiness; the church was full of the poorest people I had ever met, giving their money as they danced, sang and cried with joy. They knew, more than I had ever understood, exactly how much God had given them.
No Set Answers
There are no sure answers to all the questions about giving. There isn’t an amount to give that puts us safely in the generous category. What we can learn, though, is the attitude. There is a way of life that we see in the Bible that is a perfect model for us to follow.
Acts chapter 2 is one of those passages that we often read in church. At least once a year we dust it off and read all about what happened on the day of Pentecost, what some people call the birthday of the Church. At Pentecost we remember the way the discviples received God’s Spirit in power and preached the gospel to amazing effect. However, the story doesn’t stop there. The best bit follows, as it describes life after that day:
They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved
Acts 2:42-47
The first fruit of Pentecost was that the gospel was preached powerfully - and not just with words. There was a display of God’s supernatural power that blew people’s minds and opened their eyes. But what we are left with is not simply the class of A.D. 30, a group of spiritual junkies talking about the glory days of the ultimate rush. What they were left with was a desire to be more generous, to be more like God.
The Scriptures are full of encouragement for us to be more like God in our generosity. He keeps on giving, never stopping to rest or to stock up on blessings for Himself or to check out what’s happening on the other channels. God is love and the nature of love is to give itself away. Look at the Bible and it isn’t hard to find examples of God giving to His people: He gives protection, freedom, children, healing and more.
The biggest example has to be Jesus, the most precious and valuable thing that God had. The act of sending down His most precious child is the blueprint for us, a perfect model of how to live our lives. Jesus knew this, and in the Sermon on the Mount He told the disciples to:
“Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap”
Luke 6:38.
Jesus also encouraged the disciples to be the kind of people who would give their time, money and possessions as part of their worship.In his second letter to the Corinthians Paul says that God loves a cheerful giver (2 Corin. 9:7). The Greek word for “cheerful” literally means “hilarious.” God doesn’t just want us to give, He wants us to give with joy and with hilarity. God took great delight when Joash put a chest outside the temple courts. All of the officials and people brought their contributions gladly, dropping them into the chest until it was full (2 Chron. 24).
The key word here is “glady” (or “cheerfully”). In our society we are meant to be a prophetic people—that isn’t a flowery way of saying that we need to shout at people while they wait their turn at the supermarket check-out line, nor does it mean that we are to cultivate the personal hygiene of a confused skunk—it means that we are supposed to show a different way by our actions.
The churchgoers of Inanda showed me something by their actions. As they gave cheerfully, their actions told me that, when it comes to possessions, attitude is everything. In a society whose people are so hung up on what they can get; what they would do with a lottery jackpot; how much can be saved (or spent) each year; whether investments move up or down by a fraction of a per cent; we as God’s people must learn to live a different way, having a different attitude towards ownership.
Holding tightly on to possessions is not God’s way. When we see poverty we should give, when we see loneliness we should be offering hospitality. These things are signs that God is alive, among us and interested in the world.
What it’s all about
A couple of years ago at the Soul Survivor conference, Steve Chalke spoke at one of the main evening meetings. He tackled the subject of justice, challenging people to be offended by poverty and motivated to do something about it. At the end, he invited each person to go back to his or her tent and find an item of clothing that they wanted to give away to homeless people in London. Together, people lined up in silence to give away what they had chosen. After thirty minutes there was a truck full of clothes heading back to London.
I thought long and hard about that night. There was something in the atmosphere that made the occasion special. On the face of it, it was different than putting coins or bills in a collection box, but there was such a hush as the people lined up that the meeting became different. I soon realized what had happened: People weren’t giving their clothes to the homeless (they knew nothing about them and Steve had only mentioned them at the end of his talk) they were giving to God. It was one of the most intimate worship times I have ever experienced.
Yes, it is a good thing to be giving money away to the Church, to the poor, to charities, but as the story shows, the object of our giving really isn't the Church, the poor or charities, it is God. When we give, we do it because God wants us to, because it pleases Him. He gave us, free of charge, the life of His only Son. That is what we respond to when our hand goes to our pocket, whoever ends up getting the cash. We are being like God and responding to His grace.
Mine versus God’s
The secret of giving generously is to realize that it all belongs to God in the first place. When we become Christians a transaction takes place: We give our lives to God and He pays for them on the Cross. When He bought us, it wasn’t like a home assembly piece of furniture with half the parts missing. He got the whole kit, every part of our lives. He bought our finances, our clothes, homes, abilities and dreams. Every bit of us belongs to God.
It’s great when we see things this way; it makes it so much easier for God to shift His possessions around.
Yes, But Does God Take Visa?
Jesus said in Matthew 10 verse 38 that if anyone was up for following Him, they had to take up their Cross. That means putting down whatever else we’re playing with and committing ourselves to going His way. Daily. This is what stops Christianity from being a fluffy, cuddly, sweet and lovely fortnight break, and takes it to the next level. This is what stopped the post-Pentecost Church from being a bunch of lazy morons, and turned them into a group that changed the world.
When God has it all from us, Christianity becomes something that is real and effective. We need to give more than just our money: We need to learn to live generously with everything we have—time, energy, wisdom and love.
Having a lifestyle of giving breaks the hold of materialism over us. Materialism is essentially to love and put your security in money and possessions. Jesus tells us to make sure that we store treasures in heaven and not on earth (Matt. 6:19-20). That means we are to live on earth with heaven in mind, and not our bank balance. We set our hearts on money and possessions not only because of greed and selfishness but also because of insecurity and anxiety. Giving generously breaks the power of these things over our lives.
A life of generosity says loud and clear, “I trust God to look after me.” It is to know that every hair on our heads have been counted by Him. To give is to find freedom.
Be like Jesus—give your life away.
About the author...
Mike heads up Soul Survivor and also pastors the church, Soul Survivor Watford. He's written some books, runs around the world telling stories about Jesus and is a nice chap. He supports Manchester United, does a mean BBQ and is addicted to his four (yes four) Facebook accounts.
Soul Survivor is a Christian charity that puts on events for young people. Our registered charity no. is 1080720. We are also a company limited by guarantee in England & Wales. Our company registered number is 03991111, which is nice. Thanks for caring.
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