How To Become A Generous Person

We give to bless God:

“…They are a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God.”

This morning I went to get some jelly filled donuts and thought while I was at the store I’d pick up the latest copy of playboy. On my way home, some church folks in a big Cadillac pulled out in front of me and I slammed on my horn and yelled and cussed at em for a few minutes. Driving up Bottom Avenue towards the church, a puppy was looking at something in the gutter, I swerved and ran right over the little thing. As fur flew everywhere, I laughed. I saw a little girl standing in the door way with a tear streaming down her face. I couldn’t resist so I backed up and rolled down my window and yelled, “you ever heard of a leash?!” I then pulled into the church parking lot where I fixed my tie, grabbed my bible and headed for the sanctuary. Here I am now, feeling fine about my life…why? I’ve got my tithe check right here! 12%! After I give this, me and God will be alright!

Just in case some of you are secretly planning a lynching after church, please understand, I totally made up that story. I would never buy jelly donuts, I like the crème filled ones!

The point of that totally fictional story is to illustrate God’s real desire for our lives. He wants us to live in such a way that our lives show Him how much we love him.

III. A Promise Made

“And My God will meet all your needs according to glorious riches in Christ Jesus”

We come to believe that to give anything is to be left with less. Generous people learn that the opposite is really true.

The crossover effect: When I give money, I will be cared for in a material sense but I will also be given blessings that have nothing to do with my original gift. That is the crossover effect that giving sets into motion. The result is an opportunity to be generous in other areas. And so on.

“Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound in you, so that in all things at all times, having what you need you will abound in every good work.” -- 2 Corinthians 9:7-8

“Give and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” – Luke 6:38

Men of the Bible times used to wear robes with a belt tied around the waist. It was possible for them to store a bunch of stuff in the upper part of their robes.

I was always perplexed by Psalm 126 until I went to the Sahel, that vast stretch of savanna more than four thousand miles wide just under the Sahara Desert. In the Sahel, all the moisture comes in a four month period: May, June, July, and August. After that, not a drop of rain falls for eight months. The ground cracks from dryness, and so do your hands and feet. The winds of the Sahara pick up the dust and throw it thousands of feet into the air. It then comes slowly drifting across West Africa as a fine grit. It gets inside your mouth. It gets inside your watch and stops it. The year’s food, of course, must all be grown in those four months. People grow sorghum or milo in small fields.