3. Money-giving a wonderful power for God
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 God-like 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 too.
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. Christ has immortalized a poor widow's farthing. It shines through the ages brighter with His approval than the brightest gold. It has been a blessing to tens of thousands in the lesson it has taught. It tells you that your farthing, if it be your all, that your gift, if it be honestly given as all you ought to give to the Lord at the time, has His approval, His stamp, His eternal blessing.
If we did but take more time in quiet thoughtfulness for the Holy Spirit to show us our Lord Jesus in charge of the Heavenly Mint, stamping every true gift, and then using it for the Kingdom, surely our money would begin to shine with a new luster. And we should begin to say—the less I can spend on myself, and the more on my Lord, the richer I am. And we shall see how, as the widow was richer in her gift and her grace than the many rich, so he is richest who truly gives all he can.