Tag: generosity

Categories
Christian Living

Develop an Expectant Mindset

Have an Expectant Mindset

How We View God Impacts What We Allow Ourselves to Receive from Him

I never liked the idea of mindset. It seemed a little too woo woo for me. It was as though I was depending on a positive attitude or self-fulfilling prophecy instead of relying on God to provide what I needed each day, instead of having an expectant mindset.

I recently realized, however, that my perception was in error. When it comes to God, we need to embrace an expectant mindset. Yes, we must rely on him to provide for our needs, but our perspective ties in with the degree to which we allow him to do that.

Consider how having an expectant mindset impacts our perception of God and opens us better to receive his blessings and provisions.

Generosity versus Scarcity

I recently talked about how my prayer each morning for God to provide my daily bread had over time morphed into a scarcity mindset. That perception of God limited my ability to receive what he wanted to give me. I needed to correct my thinking to properly view him as generous as opposed to stingy.

When it came to asking him for my daily bread, I needed to adopt an expectant mindset. Once I did, everything changed. Now I’m able to praise him each night for his generous provisions during the day.

Mercy versus Judgment

When we take a cursory glance of the Old Testament, it’s easy to see God emerge as mean spirited and judgmental. Yet a more careful read shows that he’s abundantly patient and full of compassion for his people.

Intellectually, we know about God’s grace and mercy, yet do our attitudes and actions align with this? Or do we perceive God as waiting for us to mess up so he can punish us? Though it’s appropriate to have a God-honoring respect of who he is, some people overreach and cower in trepidation that he’s poised to smack us down at the slightest of mistakes.

Having an expectant mindset helps change our perception of God from judgmental to merciful.

Loving versus Vengeful

Related to the idea of mercy versus judgment is love versus vengeance. Though we know God is a God of love and loves us—so much so that he sacrificed his Son to save us—do we love him back? Or do we fear him? Do we live a life where we anticipate his love or worry about his vengeance?

His vengeance, however, is for those who reject him, not those who follow him. Yet to all he offers love in the hope we will love him back.

Again, we need to adapt an expectant mindset to fully receive the love he offers. If we hold back because we expect punishment, we limit being able to receive the full amount of his love.

Have an Expectant Mindset

We know that God is generous, offers mercy, and is loving. Yet does that knowledge move from our head to our reality? Too often we act as though God withholds goodness from us, is judgmental, and awaits to afflict vengeance on us.

To combat this, we need to adopt, and fully embrace, an expectant mindset that God wants the best for us—if only we will let him.

Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.

Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.

Categories
Christian Living

Give Us Today Our Daily Bread

our daily bread

Each Day We Must Seek God for the Provisions We Need

Asking God to supply us with our daily bread at one time mystified me. It seemed like a vain repetition (Matthew 6:7) for something that didn’t matter to me. Yet when I learned the context of this request, it made sense.

Two thousand years ago many people struggled with food scarcity. Having enough to eat was a daily concern.

Asking God to provide us with the bread we need each day is, therefore, a request for what we need to live. And it’s a reminder to depend on him to take care of us.

Jesus taught his disciples to pray in this way (Matthew 6:9-13). It’s a model for us to guide our daily prayers. One of my daily practices is to recite this passage and then pray it in my own words.

To keep this prayer from becoming a rote exercise, I strive to vary my wording and to contemplate each phrase as I make my request.

My version of “give us today our daily bread” became something like “God, give us today what we need to live.”

As I begin thinking about praying for our daily bread in this way, I developed an image of what that request meant. It evolved over time and eventually became an incorrect perspective of seeking God’s daily provisions for our lives.

Though this took place over several years, I got to a point where when I asked God to give us today our daily bread, I envisioned an old stingy man, wearing a dingy gray robe, handing me one small piece of bread and a tiny cup of water.

This was the basic provision I needed to stay alive. And that was what he was giving me.

Yet God is not stingy.

He wants to supply us extravagantly with what we need, with what we ask for. James reminds us that we have not because we ask not (James 4:2).

I desperately needed to change my perspective of what it meant when it came to God supplying me with my daily bread.

My Daily Bread

To reform my view, I begin to envision God in a grand storehouse of provisions, one heaped high with every possible thing I could need. He stands in this vast warehouse of supplies he’s prepared for me and my family.

Wearing a royal robe and impressive gold crown, he sports a broad smile. He stretches his arms wide in a grand display of generosity. It’s all there for me. He’s already prepared what I need for my day, and it’s in stock, ready for me in a moment. All I need to do is ask.

So instead of saying something like “God, give us today what we need to live,” I updated my wording.

Envisioning his grand stockpile of what he’s prepared for me, I expectantly say something like “God, give us today what we need to live . . . and to thrive . . . and to accomplish your call on our lives.”

That’s what I ask for, and that’s what I receive.

And just like the Israelites gathering their manna—their daily bread—each day (Exodus 16:14-31), I, too, make this request of God each morning.

It would be foolish for me not to.

Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.

Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.

Categories
Bible Insights

Do You Excel at the Grace of Giving?

Grace of Giving

Discover What Paul Might Mean by This Curious Phrase

There is a curious phrase in the Bible: “grace of giving.” It occurs only in Paul’s second letter to his friends at the church in Corinth. Without it appearing elsewhere in the Bible, there are no other verses we can use to grasp a better understanding of this curious phrase.

Not Begrudgingly

In considering it, the grace of giving could imply we are to give graciously. The opposite is to give begrudgingly, and that’s not good. A gift given resentfully is hardly a gift at all. Gracious giving is the goal.

Generosity

Alternately, grace of giving could suggest generosity. We give what others need and then give more. Or we give what we can and then make sacrifices to give more. We give “above and beyond” expectations. This, too, may be the grace of giving.

Offer Grace

While there is value in both these considerations, I think there is an even better one. God gives his grace to us; we should give a bit of that grace to others.

This could be money. Or it could be kindness, tolerance, acceptance, or any number of the amazing gifts God has given us, his undeserving followers.

The Grace of Giving

Regardless of how we understand the phrase grace of giving and what it precisely means, the key is to give.

We are to give to others.

[Read through the Bible with us this year. Today’s reading is 2 Corinthians 7-9 and today’s post is on 2 Corinthians 8:7.]

Read more in Peter’s book, Love is Patient (book 7 in the Dear Theophilus series).

Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.

Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.

Categories
Bible Insights

We Need to Have a Spirit of Generosity

Generosity

Examine Our Motives When We Give

Paul writes a succinct reminder to Jesus’s followers in Corinth. By extension it also applies to us. It’s about generosity. He says “Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously,” (2 Corinthians 9:6).

Generosity produces blessing, whereas stinginess results in scarcity. In another letter Paul is more concise: we reap what we sow (Galatians 6:7).

So, we should give.

Why? Because the Bible says to.

How? Give with a willing spirit, not begrudgingly but happily (2 Corinthians 9:7).

What Should We Avoid?

Giving to get. Giving to others in order to earn a return on our investment is not generosity but selfishness. Yes, I know people who have given from their poverty and God repaid them one hundredfold. But the hundredfold blessing seldom came quickly and often involved sacrifice along the way.

When we give in order to get, we miss the point. God discerns our motives (Proverbs 16:2).

Blessed to Be a Blessing

God promised Father Abraham that he and his descendants would be blessed to be a blessing (Genesis 12:2). Or consider that “A generous man will prosper,” (Proverbs 11:25).

Full Circle Generosity

In the Old Testament God says he will bless us so we can bless others. In the New Testament he says when we bless others, he will bless us even more.

The point is, we need to give generously, but we best do so for the right reasons.

[Read through the Bible this year. Today’s reading is 2 Corinthians 7-9, and today’s post is on 2 Corinthians 9:6.]

Read more in Peter’s book, Love is Patient (book 7 in the Dear Theophilus series).

Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.

Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.

Categories
Bible Insights

Give Generously and Not Begrudgingly

Give generously

We Must Take Care of the Poor Among Us

As we read through the law of Moses in the book of Deuteronomy, we come across a command that says that we are to “give generously to them and do so without a grudging heart” (Deuteronomy 15:10).

We might have the inclination to dismiss this command as part of the old covenant, which Jesus came to fulfill, but remember that he modeled and taught generosity. For example, in his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says to give to those who ask and don’t ignore those who want to borrow (Matthew 5:42).

This Old Testament command says to give generously to “them.” But who does them refer to? The context in Deuteronomy is other Israelites. We can extend this concept to us today and apply it by saying that it means those in our church or other followers of Jesus.

This is an ideal place to start, but Jesus’s command to give doesn’t limit us to our own congregation or spiritual community. The context of the passage in Matthew seems to include everyone.

Applying Moses is teaching in Deuteronomy to Jesus’s call to give, adds the stipulation to not do so begrudgingly, that is, without a grudging heart. To give generously with the wrong attitude is disobedience.

There’s one more item from Moses’s teaching. He promises a reward for those who give generously and not grudgingly. He promises God’s blessings to those who give. The blessings apply to their work and everything they do.

But Jesus doesn’t promise a blessing when we give. He just says to do it. This should be enough. If we receive a blessing for our generosity, that’s a bonus.

May we give generously to those in need without thought to a reward, because Jesus says to—and it’s the right thing to do.

[Read through the Bible with us this year. Today’s reading is Deuteronomy 13-15 and today’s post is on Deuteronomy 15:7-10.]

Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.

Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.

Categories
Bible Insights

Why It’s Important that We Prosper

God wants us to prosper

Prosperity Is Not a Bad Word, and We Must Start Embracing It as Good

A popular pastime today is to decry prosperity as an evil that plagues the world. These folks think that all people who prosper are greedy and selfish—though some are. They advocate taking from those who have and give to those who have not. In truth, these people aren’t interested in helping the poor as much as they are envious that others have more than they do.

They miss the point that God wants us to prosper.

The Bible has much to say about prosper and prosperity. We often think of prosper in terms of money, but it also applies to other areas of our life. Our family can prosper. We can prosper by enjoying good health. And we can prosper in intangible ways when we lead a God-honoring life.

Consider some of what the Bible says about the idea of prospering:

  • God plans to prosper his people and not harm them, plans to give them hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11).
  • God told Jacob to go back home and he would prosper (Genesis 32:9).
  • Obey God that we may live long and prosper (Deuteronomy 5:33).
  • Walk in obedience with God and do all he says so that you will prosper in everything you do and everywhere you go (1 Kings 2:3).
  • A person who gives generously will prosper (Proverbs 11:25).
  • Those who trust in God will prosper (Proverbs 28:25).
  • You will prosper more, and then you will know that I am your Lord (Ezekiel 36:11).
  • God made his people prosper while they were in Egypt (Acts 13:17).

Some of these verses apply to individuals, while other passages have a broader audience, but the point we can glean from all these verses—and many others in the Bible—is that God loves us. And he wants us to prosper.

Blessed to Be a Blessing

But many people desiring prosperity, miss the point of why. They think their prosperity is for their benefit and theirs alone. Taken to an extreme we end up with a prosperity gospel and a prosperity theology. Don’t go there.

These overreaches miss the basic biblical truth that God wants us to prosper. He wants to bless us. But why?

God doesn’t bless us with success and wealth so that we can live extravagant self-centered lives. He blesses us not for ourselves but for the sake of others.

God told Abraham, “I will bless you and you will in turn bless others” (Genesis 12:2). This means that God’s blessings are not for us to consume or to squander in conspicuous living.

Our blessings are to share with others. As God is generous with us, may we be as generous toward others.

Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.

Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.

Categories
Personal Posts

I’ve Got Food, But Not Everyone Does

starving children

On my post last April, I pondered how any effort to curtail water usage on my part could serve to help those halfway around the world who are thirsty. Alas, there is no direct solution (but I did suggest a course of action).

This discussion reminded me of the prodding I heard as a child to eat all the food on my plate because there were starving children in India.

Well, I thought to myself, just send them my food; I’ve had enough and don’t want any more. As a tiny lad, I even envisioned placing my unwanted food in the mailbox for the kids in India. Unfortunately, viable solutions are not so simple.

Not only are there starving children halfway around the world (and a plethora of organizations who provide sponsorship opportunities), there are also hungry people in your local community. Many are homeless, relying on homeless shelters and food kitchens for their daily sustenance.

A couple of bucks will provide a meal for one of them. The results can be even more significant in feeding the hungry in impoverished third world locales, where a few cents can provide a basic meal.

So, I can go out to eat at a moderately priced restaurant—or feed ten people at the local shelter—or 180 people in Uganda.

Think about it. I sure do.

Do you like this post? Want to read more? Check out Peter’s book, Bridging the Sacred-Secular Divide: Discovering the Spirituality of Every Day Life, available wherever books are sold.

Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.

Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.

Categories
Christian Living

The Spirituality of Giving

Spirituality of Giving

When it comes to giving to others there are two schools of thought. One is to give to whoever asks and the other is to be good stewards of the resources God has given us. The problem is, both of these are taught in the Bible, so which is it?

The answer, as with many spiritual paradoxes, is both. In this case God does not give us an immutable law to obey, but instead guidelines to follow. I think we need to discern which path to take for each individual situation.

Sometimes we need to give generously without hesitation, while other times, the good stewardship rule applies.

This may mean sharing what we have, or withholding resources, or perhaps coming up with a creative response that while not giving what is requested, does provide for what is actually needed.

Giving to others is a spiritual thing; may we do it well.

Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.

Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.

Categories
Christian Living

The Spirituality of Receiving

Spirituality of Receiving

When we give something to others, there should be a spiritual element to our generosity. It’s more than just to be nice to them or to feel better about ourselves. There’s a spiritual aspect in giving that can honor God and connect us more closely with him.

There’s also a spiritual aspect in receiving. Just as a rightly given gift should be offered graciously, it should also be received gratefully. Doing so honors the giver and likewise connects us more closely with God, the ultimate giver of all good gifts.

I recently had some minor surgery and was on the receiving end of other’s generosity. Most prominently, my bride became my head nurse for a few days, doing things for me I’m used to doing myself. Each act of kindness was another small gift.

Although I’m more comfortable in the role of giver, I endeavored to receive each gift well. This was to honor both the giver and the God behind the gift.

We can show God’s love by how we give—and in how we receive.

May we do both well.

Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.

Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.

Categories
Christian Living

Why You May Be In The Top One Percent

I’m weary hearing about the top 1 percent, the wealthiest people in the USA. While too much has already been said about this from a political, social, and philosophical standpoint, I see it as a spiritual issue.

For most of us in the US, the bottom 99 percent, we need to guard against a spirit of envy. In fact, we should be happy (the Bible would use the word “rejoice”) for just how much the top 1 percent has gained.

Let’s not forget that we, too, have gained. But it is spirit of envy that objects to someone else who gains more than us.

For the top 1 percent in the USA, let me provide a spiritual reminder: you are blessed to be a blessing. That is, help others with your money. You don’t have to give it all away (but you could).

I’m not advocating socialism or higher taxes, but I am suggesting a spirit of generosity that continually seeks to do the most good with the money that God has allowed you to earn.

However, there is a bigger picture that we need to look at, a worldwide one. According to the website globalrichlist.com, if you make over $49,000 a year, than you are in the top 1 percent worldwide.

You are blessed and need to be a blessing to others. Don’t be envious of the few who make more; be generous to the 99 percent who make less.

Did you know that about half the world lives on less than $4 a day—and that about a billion people live on less than $1 a day? Consider that next time you buy a gourmet coffee or rent a movie—your trivial expenditure equals the daily income of someone else.

Helping those in need is a spiritual issue, so is realizing that you are not part of the problem, but the solution.

Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.

Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.