Luke
14:12-14
12 Jesus also said to the man who had invited Him, When you give a dinner or a supper, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or your wealthy neighbors, lest perhaps they also invite you in return, and so you are paid back. 13 But when you give a banquet or a reception, invite the poor, the disabled, the lame, and the blind. 14 Then you will be blessed (happy, fortunate, and to be envied), because they have no way of repaying you, and you will be recompensed at the resurrection of the just (upright).
Food for thought!
Here is a searching passage, because it demands that we should examine the motives behind all our generosity.
The underlying question is, why do we give when we give? What makes people want to donate? What lies behind our gifts?
(i) We may give from a sense of duty.
We may give to God and to man much in the same way as we pay our income tax, as the satisfaction of a grim duty which we cannot escape.
(ii) We may give purely from motives of self-interest. Consciously or unconsciously we may regard our giving as an investment. We may regard each gift as an entry on the credit side of our account in the ledger of God. Such giving, so far from being generosity, is rationalized selfishness.
(iii) We may give in order to feel superior; whenever we give there's an accompanying sense of superiority to the recipient. Such giving can be a cruel thing. It can hurt the recipient much more than a blunt refusal. When we give like that we stand on our little eminence and look down. We may even with the gift throw in a short and smug lecture. It would be better not to give at all than to give merely to gratify one's own vanity and one's own desire for power. The best kind of giving is when the giver does not know to whom he is giving, and when the receiver does not know from whom he is receiving.
(iv) We may give because we cannot help it. That is the only real way to give. The law of the kingdom is this, that if a man gives to gain reward he will receive no reward; but if a man gives with no thought of reward his reward is certain. The only real giving is that which is the uncontrollable outflow of love. God gave because he so loved the world, and so must we.
12 Jesus also said to the man who had invited Him, When you give a dinner or a supper, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or your wealthy neighbors, lest perhaps they also invite you in return, and so you are paid back. 13 But when you give a banquet or a reception, invite the poor, the disabled, the lame, and the blind. 14 Then you will be blessed (happy, fortunate, and to be envied), because they have no way of repaying you, and you will be recompensed at the resurrection of the just (upright).
Food for thought!
Here is a searching passage, because it demands that we should examine the motives behind all our generosity.
The underlying question is, why do we give when we give? What makes people want to donate? What lies behind our gifts?
(i) We may give from a sense of duty.
We may give to God and to man much in the same way as we pay our income tax, as the satisfaction of a grim duty which we cannot escape.
(ii) We may give purely from motives of self-interest. Consciously or unconsciously we may regard our giving as an investment. We may regard each gift as an entry on the credit side of our account in the ledger of God. Such giving, so far from being generosity, is rationalized selfishness.
(iii) We may give in order to feel superior; whenever we give there's an accompanying sense of superiority to the recipient. Such giving can be a cruel thing. It can hurt the recipient much more than a blunt refusal. When we give like that we stand on our little eminence and look down. We may even with the gift throw in a short and smug lecture. It would be better not to give at all than to give merely to gratify one's own vanity and one's own desire for power. The best kind of giving is when the giver does not know to whom he is giving, and when the receiver does not know from whom he is receiving.
(iv) We may give because we cannot help it. That is the only real way to give. The law of the kingdom is this, that if a man gives to gain reward he will receive no reward; but if a man gives with no thought of reward his reward is certain. The only real giving is that which is the uncontrollable outflow of love. God gave because he so loved the world, and so must we.
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