February 5, 2010
Lessons learned from River in the Desert, p. 2
Another one of the things that I learned through River in the Desert was just how little I really believe the gospel when it comes to how I think about giving anything of myself to someone or something else. I once heard Tim Keller give a great illustration about God’s call for his people to give (specifically giving our money through tithes and offerings). He said he once bought his son a candy bar to eat. A few minutes later he asks his son if he could have a small bite to eat, a comment to which his son replies, “No! You can’t have any! It’s mine!” Tim Keller responded by asking, “Seriously?” If we’re really honest with ourselves, whenever God calls us to give of ourselves in any fashion, whether through our time and energy or through giving money, we most likely respond in a similar fashion to this child who had just been freely given something (even if this only takes place in our hearts and minds in ways that we are adept at hiding!). A heart that says “I don’t want to give! It’s mine!” is a heart that doesn’t really get the gospel, that the Creator of the Universe has given us everything in our lives, that everything we have, we have only because God has freely and graciously given it to us. A not only has God given us every material thing in our lives, but he has given us the supreme gift of his Son, the ultimate, gracious gift given to undeserving people who have only worked for sin’s wages of death. A heart that becomes angry when God (or anyone else) asks to give is a heart that doesn’t really believe Paul’s point when he rhetorically asks in Rom. 8, “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?”
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