Our air conditioner quit last week, so I took it apart and spread the pieces all over the backyard. This caused me to realize two important facts. First, I am not a plumber and I have no idea how an air conditioner works. Second, most of the time you cannot tell whether a piece of electrical equipment is working or not based on how it looks. One needs some sort of diagnostic tool to make the proper assessment. When the plumbers showed up the next day, they brought their multimeter, found the bad component, and fixed the problem in ten minutes.
That experience made me think that it would be great to have a similar diagnostic tool to check on our spiritual health and see how we are doing. Fortunately, God has already supplied one.
In a section about the importance of generosity, Paul writes, “Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Corinthians 9:7). Notice that this verse assumes that Christians are going to be givers. The concern of the passage is not about what we do, but rather how we do it.
If we give, but hate it, then the gift has not been given properly. If we must be pushed or guilted into sharing our time, money or energy, something is wrong within us. In other words, our giving is about something much more important than the gift. Giving is diagnostic. It tells us something about our hearts!
When we listen to the wrong voices and value the wrong things, giving is a burden. Generosity becomes nothing more than a way to lose something valuable. However, when our hearts are tuned into God, giving becomes a path to building others up and contributing to something even more important.
The more we value generosity, the more we look and act like God himself.
“He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Matthew 5:45).
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