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Key Bible Verse: "I assure you, this poor widow has given more than all the others have given. For … she … has given everything she has" (Mark 12:43-44). Bonus Reading: Mark 12:41-44

Generosity comes hard for me. It does for most people. I suspect that explains why Jesus put so much stress on how we handle material possessions. It divides people between those willing to let go and follow God and those who insist on keeping control.

When I lived in Kenya, genuinely hungry and needy people lived near me in vast numbers. Yet plenty of crooks and swindlers also worked on guilt-ridden, compassionate Westerners. They concentrated on tourists, but sometimes they got me too. These swindles struck me as obscene. I hated to discover I'd been taken. But either I had to stop giving altogether, or I had to accept that whenever I gave, I took a chance on being conned. I eventually arrived at this maxim: "I'd rather be cheated a hundred times than have a heart of stone."

I think Jesus would say just that. After all, that widow who gave her last two dollars put the money into the temple treasury, to be spent by the high priest and his bureaucracy. We could all suggest better charities! However, when Jesus evaluated what she did, he wasn't thinking about the temple bureaucracy. He thought of that woman's heart. Her untamed generosity mattered far more than the efficient use of two dollars.

—Tim Stafford in Never Mind the Joneses

My Response: What steps do I need to take to keep my heart from turning to stone?

Thought to Apply: God divided the hand into fingers so that money could slip through. —Martin Luther (reformer)

Adapted from Never Mind the Joneses (InterVarsity, 2004) by permission.

Copyright © 2008 by the author or Christianity Today International/Men of Integrity magazine.
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Prayer for the Week

Teach me, Lord, to give more like You do: ungrudgingly, freely, lavishly.

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