Give Generously

Deuteronomy 15:10 Give generously to them and do so without a grudging heart; then because of this the LORD your God will bless you in all your work and in everything you put your hand to. 11 There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your fellow Israelites who are poor and needy in your land.

     Give generously. That is hard for so many people. We like to hold onto what we have, what we have earned, the things that demonstrate blessing. So it is counter-intuitive to give generously. And yet this is exactly what we are called to do.
     As the Israelites are preparing to enter the Promised Land, they are faced with a choice. They must choose how they are going to respond to wealth. The Promised Land is the place where God's promise meets God's people. Everything was provided for in the Land. What were they going to do with it?
     Their choice was a simple one. They could hold onto it for themselves or they could be obedient and take care of the poor, the widow and the orphan. They could build bigger barns (to borrow from a parable of Jesus) or they could give generously.
     The focus is on those who are part of the community, connected to the LORD. Fellow Israelites need to be taken care of by the people of the LORD. They are part of the covenant people, which includes foreigners who choose to align themselves with Israel.
     Too often we put labels on those less fortunate. We blast them as lazy in order to justify our unwillingness to lend a hand up. We think "they got themselves into this mess, they need to get themselves out of it."
     I am not talking about enabling bad behavior or encouraging continued wrong choices. "There will always be poor people in the land." We have an obligation as God's people to demonstrate our trust in the God who has 'blessed us with every spiritual blessing in Christ Jesus' in practical, tangible ways. We need to open our hands and let the blessing flow through us.