When we think about the duty of giving, we may be tempted to think first of ourselves: what good givers we are, how we fail, or how we desire to improve. Recently, as I listened to a podcast by Sinclair Ferguson, I was reminded that we Christians tend to look for ourselves as we read the Gospels. Instead, we should be looking at the Gospels to watch Jesus and learn from Him. Sinclair Ferguson’s good admonishment prompted me to think of the amazing example we see in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit and to start there as we consider our calling to give and the joy of giving.

Our Triune God, the Ultimate Giver

In Genesis, we learn that God gave us the heavens and the earth. He gives us our lives and our being. He gives us the air we breathe and the food we eat. He gives us clothes, shelter, family, and friends. Even after Adam and Eve fell, the Lord God made for Adam and his wife garments of skins and clothed them (Gen. 3:21).

In terms of joy, think of the joy our heavenly Father experiences when He gives these good gifts to His children. He delights in giving to His children because He delights in us and loves us.

God also joyfully grants us our salvation by showering His grace on us and giving us faith in Christ. He has given us the Holy Spirit to dwell in us. And, most of all, He has given us His Son.

The Holy Spirit gives us the gift of a transformed life (Gal. 5:16–25). After being regenerated, we are not the same as we once were. He also gives us the ability to see our sin (John 16: 7–11). The Comforter, our Lord promised us, guides us to the truth (John 16:12–13).

The Spirit of God also gives us the ability to worship. Paul reminds us in Ephesians 5:18–21, “Don’t get drunk with wine, but be filled with the Spirit: speaking to one another in Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making music with your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another in the fear of Christ.”

We look fondly and thankfully to our Lord Jesus Christ, “the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb. 12:2). Paul was almost beside himself as he pondered this gift of salvation in his final words of Romans 11. He writes, “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! ‘For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor? Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?’ For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen” (vv. 33–36).

Living Out the Life of Giving

In the summer of 2007, our family went on a mission trip to Nepal and India. We spent time in Nepal doing childcare for missionaries who were attending a conference. On the second half of the trip, we traveled in India with our missionary friends as they showed us some of the areas where they were serving. This second half was more about touring and viewing and not so focused on giving. We were shocked by the conditions that so many struggled with and the depth of need. Our hearts were heavy for many weeks after we returned home, and we felt discouraged that we weren’t able to pour into the need we saw as we traveled in India.

In 2008, I was invited on an International Scripture Blitz with the Gideons ministry. We went to Kolkata and Hyderabad and gave out 233,000 copies of God’s Word in a two-week period. It was such a joy for me to go back and give. For those of us who are called by God and who have been made new in Christ, giving truly does become the new normal.

When we reconsider how we as followers of the Lord Jesus have been blessed by Him, we instinctively want to give back to the Lord with a joyful heart that is filled with thankfulness and gratitude. We are challenged in 1 John 3:17 to consider, when someone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need yet closes his heart against him, whether God’s love truly abides in him.

When we remember that everything we have has been given to us by God and everything belongs to Him, we then should think of our joy as being the joy of giving back to the Lord.

First Chronicles 29:11–13 reminds us: “Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, O Lord, and you are exalted as head above all. Both riches and honor come from you, and you rule over all. In your hand are power and might, and in your hand it is to make great and to give strength to all. And now we thank you, our God, and praise your glorious name.”

We all may be feeling a financial pinch these days as prices rise for gas, food, housing, etc. I am sure that we all want to pull in and worry and look out only for ourselves. The Lord knows our tendency well, so He reminds us and speaks to us in His radical words in the famous Sermon on the Mount. Here Jesus says, “For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the sky, that they do not sew, nor reap, nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more important than they? And which of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?” (Matt. 6:25–28).

I am often saddened and appalled at my own selfishness, yet God gives us the cure by allowing us to be joyfully involved in kingdom giving. I appreciate the words of Derek Thomas in his book Let Us Worship God. In the chapter, “The Offering,” Derek writes, “Paul tells the Corinthians that giving will glorify God (2 Cor. 9:13). How does this happen? It all depends on whether you view God as One who ‘takes’ or One who ‘gives.’ Behind this picture of cheerful giving lies a heart that sees God as the abundant Supplier, the generous Giver, the bountiful Helper. When you see God like that, the ‘ask’ is not so much a command as a joy.”

When we understand that where our treasure is, our hearts will be also, when we give to the Lord’s work, our hearts are aligned with God’s.

The RPM&M Kingdom Giving Opportunity

We are relatively new to the RPCNA, and it took us a little while to understand the role of this giving arm of the church (RPM&M) and its broad impact, but we have come to be excited about its work.

RPM&M actually supports the Board of Education and Publication, Geneva College, the Home Mission Board, RP Global Missions, the Reformed Presbyterian Home, the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary, the Committee for Vital Churches, the EA Commission, and the Central and South Americas Committee.

Here in Colorado, we look up into the mountains and observe the snowpack and the glacier fields, knowing full well that this is the source for our drinking water and the farmers’ irrigation water—the life source for so much. How blessed we are in the RPCNA to be able to contribute our gifts to the missions and ministries of the kingdom through RPM&M, knowing that, like those mountain glaciers, it is supplying part of the needs of all of the above ministries. Future pastors are being trained, missionaries are being equipped and sent out, college students are learning at a school that is committed to truth, and saints in their final years are being well taken care of.

Let us commit ourselves, by the grace of God, to praying for these ministries and for God’s people serving in them, with faith that the kingdom impact from them will glorify God. And may we joyfully give to support the work of the faithful ones who serve in this ministry. “Thy kingdom come and thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10).