23 Cents

As I sat at my desk this morning, grinding through thoughts for a new teaching series on stewardship I will be leading our faith community through, my mind was constantly driven back to this past week's stewardship offering by our faith community.  The significance, however, of this past week's offering had nothing to do with the dollar amount that we received.  Despite the generous offerings given to God by our people, it was  23 Cents that I can't keep my mind off of.  Now I have no idea who put this change in our offering basket, but nonetheless, it has impacted me in my thoughts towards what generosity truly looks like.   In Mark 12, we are reminded, as I have been this week, about what true stewardship looks like.  Mark 12:41-44 says this:   "And he [Jesus] sat down opposite the treasury and watched the people putting money into the offering box. Many rich people put in large sums.  And a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which make a penny.  And he called his disciples to him and said to them, “Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box.  For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”   There was no pressure this day in regards to stewardship right???  Those who were extremely wealthy put in large amounts of money.  And this poor widow put in two small copper coins.  They gave from their abundance, but she gave everything!  Jesus instructs His disciples that this is what generosity looks like.   We often gauge our generosity on the amount we give:  the dollar amount, the amount of time, the amount of energy, or the amount of commitment.  Unfortunately, this becomes our litmus test for the level of our generosity.  This often leads us to give the remnants of our money, the remnants of our time, the remnants of our energy, and the remnants of our commitment.  The sad truth is, many of us often would be characterized by the qualities of the "rich" instead of the humility of the "poor."   What would it look like if followers of Christ truly began to live generous lives?  What if we "put in everything we have" for the sake of the kingdom?  What if we truly trusted God with our lives to the point that we went all in?    I am fully convinced that if we truly gave Him all, we would commit to give Him from the "firstfruits" of our finances and not just from our surplus.  We would begin to order our calendars and lives around missional living so that our lives are leveraged for His use in our neighborhoods and communities.  I believe we would prioritize what we pour our energy into so that we fully invest our lives for the advancement of the gospel.  And there is no question that we would begin to commit our lives to gospel-centered discipleship as instructed by Jesus in the Great Commission.