Maximum Generosity

I'm one of those odd fellows who thinks highly of the state of being referred to as generosity. Don't get me wrong, I used to be incredibly greedy and selfish. In some respects, I may still suffer from the character defect of selfishness. But when I do, I don't think it's about money. God has taken that one away from me. So how did that happen?

Somewhere in my journey with Christ, it dawned on me that obedience matters when it comes to things of God. I took the commandment to tithe somewhat seriously and started increasing our giving. At the end of the year, I asked my wife to add up our giving for the year to see how close to 10% we had come. We had in fact exceeded the 10% target by quite a bit. I was shocked and remember thinking, "Wow! We can't afford to give like that!" But then I realized that we already had! That revelation was a turning point for me. We hadn't really even tried to measure our obedience through the year. We just agreed with God about the right thing was and started moving toward it. He met all our needs, and we ended up giving way more than we could have given if we had simply decided to. What an amazing phenomenon.

I ran across this web site recently that this guy called Brian Kluth has put up. It seems this man is on a mission to teach churches, church leaders and Christians in general how to be generous givers in God's Kingdom. His web site is http://www.kluth.org/. Now I don't know how theologically sound this guy is. I haven't really checked his writings against Scripture. But I have to say that I love his mission. It is my prayer that church leaders would really get on the ball and start moving their followers toward being generous. It's okay if you're not generous today. We just need to teach you that it's the right thing to be, help you make it your goal, and then help you train for that goal!