Chuck Foreman – Teaching Pastor

Remember the widow’s 2 penny offering at the temple among all the rich who were all giving out of their abundance? Jesus’ comment was that she had given MORE than all the others. His point was that generosity is not reserved for the rich and influential.  You don’t have to be wealthy or famous to be generous. Generosity is a matter of your heart. Generosity is not about how much you give, but about how much you have left when you give. 

It’s interesting to me that whenever we start talking about justice  as being more than simply punishing the wrongdoer, but as right living toward others, carried out in the arena of our everyday lives, it will always cost us something. C.S. Lewis put it like this,

“If our giving does not at all pinch or hamper us, I should say it is too small. There ought to be things we should like to do and cannot because our commitment to giving excludes them.”   

But this justice reorientation for us cannot be just about money. Parting with our money and stuff is only the starting point—and it’s the easiest thing for us to do when you realize that living justly requires a complete inventory of our lifestyle, a genuine reorientation of how we live in relation to others, especially the poor.

Justice in our world is tied directly to our generosity, or the lack thereof. You see, there are things God wants his people to do—social evils and problems he wants us to solve that won’t happen until we become generous with our time, energy and resources.  Here’s the question for all of us: What can I do without so that others won’t have to do without?