Generosity and financial success
10 ways to celebrate this thanksgiving
Thanksgiving is a great time of year to pause and celebrate. Here are a few ideas to help you embrace the time.
Generous with time, but Focused
In Mark 1:32-39 Peter learns the need to focus on his time. At this point, Simon, who later would be called Peter, does not know much about Jesus. After some time in the synagogue, they go to Peter’s house. After the sunset people begin to show up at Peter’s house and Jesus spends time that night healing people.
The next day, early in the morning, Jesus gets up and leaves to find a solitary place and prays. Peter is searching for Jesus and seems a little frustrated that he has left. Peter tells Jesus that everyone is looking for him. Let me summarize what is behind that statement: What are you doing here Jesus? All these people are at my house and you need to be there healing those people. There is some implication that Peter sees the Lord’s absence as unproductive and perhaps having the wrong priorities.
Jesus simply does not seem impressed by the large crowd and all the people wanting. Notice his statement in verse 38 “Let us go somewhere else….” The reason was to preach the gospel to other villages. You see Jesus was generous with is time but also focused. He knew what God the Father sent him to do and so prioritizes his life. Jesus that day did not heal everyone or do everything.
Peter would learn the need to prioritize his time. Peter would begin to learn to look at the needs through the eyes of the Father’s will. There are a lot of good things they could be doing.
There are a lot of good things you could be doing.
Jesus knew what God the Father called him to do. Sometimes we get so caught up in trying to be good Christians and helping everyone and doing all kinds of good work that in the process, we miss Jesus and the opportunity to produce better fruit. Sometimes, like Peter, we have expectations, or listen to the expectations of others, and miss out on being and doing what God has called us to be or do.
What about you?
Are you just running through life with no direction; running from one urgent thing to the next? Have you filled your schedule so much that you look busy and are busy but have no margin and time to just be still and know God.
God is not in a rush.
In this season of your life, what is the Holy Spirit asking you to focus on? Where do you need to stop living for the urgent and live for the significant? Are you busy in work, or a location or circumstance, but God is calling you to be somewhere else?
This week ask yourself this question, how does Jesus want you to use your time?
There is no way Peter got this right away and he would have taken baby steps. What steps do you need to take to focus on what you should be doing?
In my life I do still live in the tensions and the only way I can align correctly is to have paused moments of reflection. Perhaps this is what Jesus was doing out there alone praying. He was being reminded of where he should be and who he was.
Series: Walking with Peter and Jesus
2016 A year to learn about generosity
Generosity, what is it?
Does living a generous life help us live a better life? What does the bible have to say about being generous?
In 2016, the church community I am part of will be journeying in the theme of Generosity. Given that this will be part of my journey as well, I thought I would write about it. To be honest, I am not sure where this series will go or what the end result will be. My goal at the moment is to have 3-4 post a month that are part of this series.
The Word Generous
The University of Notre Dame has a group looking at the science of generosity. They share that the word ‘generous,’ up until the 16th Century, “reflects an aristocratic sense of being of noble lineage or high birth. To be generous was literally a way of saying ‘to belong to nobility.’ It was not till the 19th Century that ‘generosity’ developed from being primarily the description of an ascribed status pertaining to the elite nobility to being an achieved mark of admirable personal quality and action capable of being exercised in theory by any person who had learned virtue and noble character.”[1]
The value and virtue of Generosity has deep roots in the Bible. We see Abraham give a meal to three strangers who come near his tent in the wilderness. In showing this hospitality, Abraham has honored God and is able to hear God.
My hope is to be both practical and reflective through this series.
Here are a few of my objectives/questions to explore:
· What do Jesus and the bible say about generosity?
· If Jesus calls us to generosity, what does it look like in our life?
· What are the benefits of generous living?
· Is generosity just about money?
· How do we steward our money in order to give it away?
· What does it practically look like to live generously ?
Stay tuned as we journey together through this series, and along the way, I would love to hear from you. Do you have any good resources? What questions do you have?
Let me know below.
[1] (http://generosityresearch.nd.edu/more-about-the-initiative/what-is-generosity/)