The Secret of Breakthrough Generosity

CONSECRATE Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.  Jesus, I belong to you. I lift up my heart to you. I set my mind on you. I fix my eyes on you. I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice. Jesus, we belong to you.  Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.  HEAR Luke 21:1–4 NIV As Jesus looked up, he saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury. He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins. “Truly I tell you,” he said, “this poor widow has put in more than all the others. All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.” CONSIDER Have you ever heard the phrase, "Give till it hurts?"  It's one of those favorite phrases of money-grubbing preachers which I never understood—until I did.  I was in my last year of seminary, and I was out of money. Growing up, I was taught to never let the collection plate pass me by without making an offering, and I usually did. It was a quarter as a kid, a dollar as a teenager, and maybe a $5 as an emerging adult. Then one day, the preacher of my church brought up tithing, a foreign concept not only to me but to my entire church (and I dare say denomination). Now, Luke 21 is not a text about tithing, and I don't intend to get into the subject other than to say, I decided to start tithing then and there. Of course, I was only making $300 a week in my part-time job, so $30 didn't feel like too big of a stretch. In other words—it didn't really hurt—but I was satisfied I was becoming a serious giver.  Fast forward to my last year of seminary, and I was down to the final distribution of the inheritance from my grandfather. It was $10,000. And you are starting to feel "the hurt" with me. The Chapel was receiving an offering for the emergency relief fund for seminary students that week. Knowing what I had to do, I went to the bank and got ten crisp $100 bills. I put them into an envelope and carried it to chapel that day. The plate went by, I reached into my pocket for the envelope, and just as the plate passed by, I felt intense pain shooting through my soul. Yes, I left the money in my pocket.  You see, I knew $10,000 wouldn't cover even half of my tuition for that last year (much less the rest of the bills), and I had no idea how I would cover it. I had also signed up for a once-in-a-lifetime on-location Bible class in Israel with none other than the G.O.A.T. Bible professor, Dr. John Oswalt, which was going to cost significantly more than the normal annual seminary budget. There's no way I could afford to part with one thousand precious dollars when I already had way less than enough and no plan to cover.  As the chapel service ended, I remained in my seat. As everyone cleared out, it was just me, the offering plate still on the altar table, and the now sweat-soaked envelope in my pocket. As the clock ticked, I knew what I had to do. With no one but Jesus watching (because we know from today's text that he does), I rose to my feet, walked to the altar, and placed my precious tithe of $1000 into the collection plate, and I sheepishly walked away.  Finally, I understood. I gave till it hurt. And then it felt strangely good. I had trusted God like I never had before. I put my money where my faith was. And isn't that the point here? As long as money is about money, we are living in a world of broken scarcity. But the minute money becomes about God through faith, we are practically delivered from the idolatry of money into the mind-blowing economy of Jesus. I knew I couldn't trust the money I had left to make ends meet for me. It was mathematically impossible. I had to trust God. Those ten one-hundred-dollar bills became my buy-in—not for the salvation of my soul, which comes by grace alone—but into the realized superabundance of the kingdom of God in the real world. In the pain of that gift on that day long ago, I discovered the secret of breakthrough generosity.  Because I'm out of room, I will tell the rest of the story in the podcast/YouTube edition of today's Wake-Up Call.  PRAY Lord Jesus, you are the super abundance of the kingdom of God in the real world. In your hands, the fishes and loaves of my limited life become the extraordinary testimony of your transformational power. Would you break the cycle of wilderness scarcity in me and lead me into the promised land of your never-ending provision? It will be for your glory, for others' gain, and for my own good. Praying in your name, Jesus, amen.