All my money giving--what a test of character! Lord Jesus! Oh give me grace to love Thee intently, that I may know how to give.
_2. Money giving a great means of grace._
Christ called His disciples to come and listen while He talked to them about the giving He saw there. It was to guide their giving and ours. Our giving, if we listen to Christ with the real desire to learn, will have more influence on our growth in grace than we know.
The spirit of the world, "the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life." Money is the great means the world has for gratifying its desires. Christ has said of His people, "they are not of the world, as I am not of the world." They are to show in their disposal of money that they act on unworldly principle, that the spirit of heaven teaches them how to use it. And what does that spirit suggest? Use it for spiritual purposes, for what will last for eternity, for what is pleasing to God. "They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh and its lusts." One of the ways of manifesting and maintaining the crucifixion of the flesh is never to use money to gratify it. And the way to conquer every temptation to do so, is to have the heart filled with large thoughts of the spiritual power of money. Would you learn to keep the flesh crucified--refuse to spend a penny on its gratification. As much as money spent on self, may nourish and strengthen and comfort self, money sacrificed to God may help the soul in the victory that overcometh the world and the flesh.
Our whole life of faith may be strengthened by the way we deal with money. Many men have to be engaged continually in making money--by nature the heart is dragged down and bound to earth in dealing with what is the very life of the world. It is faith that can give a continual victory over this temptation. Every thought of the danger of money, every effort to resist it, every loving gift to God, helps our life of faith. We look at things in the very light of God. We judge of them as out of eternity, and the money passing through our hands and devoted to God may be a daily education in faith and heavenly-mindedness.
Very specially may our money giving strengthen our life of love. Every grace needs to be exercised if it is to grow; most of all is this true of love. And--did we but know it--how our money might develop and strengthen our love, as it called us to the careful and sympathizing consideration of the needs of those around us. Every call for money, and every response we give, might be the stirring of a new love, and the aid to a fuller surrender to its blessed claims.
Money giving may be one of your choicest means of grace, a continuous fellowship with God in the renewal of your surrender of your all to Him, and in proof of the earnestness of your heart to walk before Him in self-denial, and faith and love.
_3. Money giving a wonderful power for God._
What a wonderful religion Christianity is. It takes money, the very embodiment of the power of sense of this world, with its self-interest, its covetousness, and its pride, and it changes it into an instrument for God's service and glory.
Think of the poor. What help and happiness is brought to tens of thousands of helpless ones by the timely gift of a little money from the hand of love. God has allowed the difference of rich and poor for this very purpose--that just as in the interchange of buying and selling mutual dependence upon each other is maintained among men--so in the giving and receiving of charity there should be abundant scope for the blessedness of doing and receiving good. He said, "It is more blessed to give than to receive." What a Godlike privilege and blessedness to have the power of relieving the needy and making glad the heart of the poor by gold or silver! What a blessed religion that makes the money we give away a source of greater pleasure than that which we spend on ourselves! The latter is mostly spent on what is temporal and carnal, that spent in the work of love has eternal value, and brings double happiness, to ourselves and others.
Think of the church and its work in this world; of missions at home and abroad, and the thousand agencies for winning men from sin to God and Holiness. Is it indeed true that the coin of this world, by being cast into God's treasury in the right spirit, can receive the stamp of the mint of heaven, and be accepted in exchange for heavenly blessings? It is true. The gifts of faith and love go not only into the Church's treasury, but into God's own treasury, and are paid out again in heavenly goods. And that not according to the earthly standard of value, where the question always is, How much? but according to the standard of heaven, where men's judgments of much and little, great and small, are all unknown.