At MVBC we started the month of December by laying out several financial goals for us a church:
1. Continued stewardship of existing resources.
2. Sacrificial giving from every MVBC member.
3. Meet or exceed our December giving goal.
4. Giving that meets our weekly budget.
5. Foundations debt paid off.
Goal number three is only one of many goals, but is very important because a big chunk of our tithes and offerings are received in December. What a joy to be able to announce that we have exceeded this goal! I thank God for the generosity of this local body of Christ. Please join me in praying that we would continue to give generously and cheerfully.
It can be difficult to talk about money in the church. We tend to separate the sacred (Scripture, church, praying) from the secular (sports, money, work, leisure). Scripture doesn't do that, though. Passage after passage yells out that our heart and and our wallets are connected. This is why Jesus commended that widow, isn't it? When the rich gave so much, the widow was commended for giving everything: "They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything--all she had to live on."
Yes, we need to be prudent, we must be prudent. We should be like the ants, those "creatures of little strength who store up their food in the summer" (Prov. 30:25). But there should also be generosity, radical generosity, that stretches us so that it is obvious to our own conscience and to the world around us that we are dependent upon the Lord.
I've seen this kind of radical generosity at MVBC and I pray it continues. There is a very helpful book that explores more deeply the connection between money and the heart, dollars and our destiny: Money, Possession, and Eternity by Randy Alcorn. Randy is rightly convinced that we cannot follow Jesus with addressing our "stuff":
To understand the truth about money and possessions, to understand life at all, we simply must understand the true nature of earth and heaven. We must clearly behold these two kingdoms with their two kings, two citizenries, and two treasuries. If we don't see this we are destined, at best, to a superficial or even token religious experience. If we do see, the door is unlocked to the exhilirating realm of Christian discipleship, where 'following Christ' is not a comforting but meaningless buzzword, but an electrifying, life-changing reality" (26).
This is what we are working for at Mount Vernon. The "electrifying, life-changing reality" of following Christ. By God's grace, we are on the way!
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