Giving to Get
Mature believers come to know that giving is the key to everything. Marriage, career, ministry, relationships—you name it! Givers are the happiest people in the world. Giving is its own reward because it makes us noble and even “wealthy” just by engaging in it. When we give it always sets in motion a chain of events that seeds the earth to bring blessings back to us. God is so good to have built the universe that way.
In generations past Christians gave out of love for the poor, to show gratitude to God for His abundant blessings or to obey the scriptures and become a part of the Kingdom of God going forward.
Then Oral Roberts came along. His tent-revival ministry was characterized by great healings and many people coming to the Lord, but when he became one of the first ministers to go on national TV he also brought to the body of Christ a new concept, “Seed Faith.” While in the longer explanation it meant something like what I described in my first paragraph, in practice it basically signaled a change in the primary motivation for giving. Bro. Oral and then countless TV and Radio ministers after him encouraged the rise of a radical self interest in the act of giving to the Lord. I don’t think anything has done more damage to the cause of Christ in the last two generations than that one new doctrinal emphasis: Giving to get something out of God.
Haven’t we really already gotten something out of God? Hasn’t He done enough for us for a lifetime? Do any of us truly doubt that we will have food, shelter and clothing from His hand throughout our lives?
“Giving to get” is beneath us, brothers and sisters. We will certainly get. We will “get” even beyond all that we deserve because the Grace of God has been poured out on us through Jesus Christ. God is debtor to no man. No one has ever given even a cup of cold water without God marking them for reward. But giving the cup of water just to get the reward perverts the gift itself. We should give because we love the thirsty child or because the child is made in the image of God and then just leave the rewarding up to our amazingly generous God who sees what is done is private and rewards it in public.
Let’s be lavish givers just because it’s good to be so, and let God sort out the rest.
Open Heart, Open Home
When we were 23 and 24 years old we read a very influential book, “Open Heart, Open Home” by Karen Mains. It basically challenges the idea that your home is your fortress or your showpiece. She wrote it after the kid next door from the dysfunctional home repeatedly tracked dirt on her nice carpets, etc. and she was tempted to limit his entrance to her home. Then, of course, the Lord rebuked her and reminded her that it was His house given for her to enjoy and to minister out of so she needed to loosen up and try her best to get lost people and others who needed a shelter to come inside it. That really resonated with us and we have tried to run an open home ever since. We often have an extra half dozen people for dinner at night, and especially on weekends. Sometimes that means someone staying with us for months at a time. Maybe we invite them and sometimes they invite themselves.
Now if you are going to run an open home you need to make a few adjustments. For starters, you need some new systems of care that are not built on entertaining but on practicing biblical hospitality (meeting the person’s real need). For example a tired college student is fine with a sofa to sleep on. Don’t turn him away because you have no more bedrooms. Tables should be round, not rectangular. Sherry says, “There’s always room for one more at a round table.” You need also to have an attitude adjustment about the cost of food, etc. Don’t calculate it. Just give. And it will be given unto you. Good measure, pressed down, running over…. If you look at the context of that verse I really don’t think Jesus was talking about giving in an offering in a church service, but giving to real people in life. Share food, money, and beds with people and God will fill your cupboard and bank account back up when they run empty.
An open home is a little messy most of the time, but it is a place of laughter and warmth. I encourage you to open your doors and your kitchen table and invite someone into your life to share community. We have found so much joy that way and our life is a greater influence. Our home is the absolute center of our ministry. Everything “public” flows from there.
