God loves a cheerful giver

Two things make me think of this again. First I am reading 2 Corinthians 9 where this quote originally comes from. Secondly I am following a young starlet (so shoot me, my wife thinks I need my head examined) who is constantly pushing her followers to give to her favorite charities.

Give to charities that you think are worthy. In giving cheerfully we learn dependency on God. We find God is generous. Paul promises God's blessings but he never mentions financial blessings.

But in giving we break our bondage to a love of money and the security we feel in having it. Our security should be on God, not on money. Giving to good causes helps us to break that dependency.

All of us should practice charity. It should hurt a little. It will bring a new sense of freedom. Practice cheerful giving. If we give begrudgingly we have not allowed God to free us from our bondage.

I contrast this to my starlet who promotes giving by auctioning off signed posters of herself or even a persona phone call. How much does that hurt her? It may help some of her younger followers to actually develop a habit of giving. I imagine some of these kids have never actually given to anything. I hope and pray that they learn to give to less politically correct issues, but that is for later I guess.

I am not saying to give instead of paying your bills or even instead of saving. All of us who have excess should practice saving too. No this is for those of us who have the luxury of eating out or buying the latest gadgets. If you are having trouble actually covering essentials you should be responsible.

Paul was raising a sum of money to carry to Jerusalem to help the Christians there who were having trouble eating. Perhaps their decision to follow Christ was causing them to lose their jobs and livelihoods. He is switching between encouraging and shaming. He is doing a pretty hard sell here. While telling them to give cheerfully he also is not against it "hurting" a bit. He wants them to give generously. But I don't think Paul is taking food out of anyone's mouth. But he does not want them to take money already set aside and spend it on themselves before he comes to get it.

Be sure to practice cheerful giving to favorite charities. I tend to give to charities that include work to directly forward the gospel though I do give to some local homeless shelters. I limit myself to charities run by people I have actually met. I find it helps to plan my giving. It does not have to be any less cheerful for all that.