"Walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.” Colossians 1:10
The Joy of Giving
There are over 2,000 Scriptures in the Bible on money and giving. Here are two: a) "All must give as they are able, according to the blessings given to them by the LORD your God... “Deut 16:17.
b) "Let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly... for God loves a cheerful giver" 2 Cor 9:7.
Here are two stories on the joy of giving worth thinking about:
1) Oseola McCarty, 87, did one thing all her life: laundry. Now she's famous for it. For decades she earned fifty cents per load doing laundry for well-to-do families in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, preferring a washboard over a washing machine. Every week she put a little bit in a savings account. When she finally retired she asked her banker how much money she had. "$250,000," he replied. She was in shock. "I had more than I could use," she explained. So this shy, never-married laundry woman gave $150,000 to the University of Southern Mississippi to help young African American people attend college. "It's more blessed to give than to receive," she told reporters. "I've tried it."
2) Don McCullough, President of San Francisco Seminary, says: "Scottish Presbyterians established churches in Ghana over 100 years ago. Their worship services still resemble a formal Scottish Presbyterian service... But recently they've allowed traditional African expressions into the worship service. Now the people dance at offering time. The music plays, and each individual joyfully dances down the aisle to the offering plate. According to the missionary who told me this, the offering is the only time in the service when people smile. No doubt, God also smiles!"
The Academy Award-winning movie Shindler's List is the story of one man's efforts to make the most of a desperate opportunity. As the director of a munitions factory in Germany, Schindler decides to use his position to save lives. By employing them in his factory, Schindler is able to rescue condemned Jews from the gas chambers. But keeping them on is costly. Little by little, he liquidates his personal possessions in order to keep the business afloat. At the end of the story the Nazis are defeated. The full weight of Schindler's efforts is finally revealed as the dead are counted and the living stagger back to freedom. In one scene, kneeling by the railroad tracks that had carried thousands of Jews to their death, Oskar Schindler has a startling realization: he could have saved a few more. Overwhelmed with regret, he laments the few goods still remaining in his possession. If only he'd known when the war would end, he would have done more. But now it was too late.
Oskar Schindler is a hero. He's credited with saving more lives during World War II than any other single person. But interestingly, all he could think about was what he didn't do. He wished he had done more.
We can learn a powerful lesson about giving from this man. Because, in the same way, even joyful givers will look back on their lives and wish they'd done more. And as for those who never gave at all, or gave less than they could, imagine their thoughts as they stand before God in the final audit to give an account of how they used their finances - and are rewarded accordingly!
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