The Blessedness of Giving
“It is more blessed to give than to receive.” — Acts 20: 35.
Some gems, as solitaires, are most beautiful; they are so brilliant that they need no other gems to set them off. This text is such a gem of truth. It appears to have been omitted by the four evangelists, and picked up by Paul as he came along after them; but there was really no omission. The other beatitudes lean upon each other: it takes them all to make a whole. This one is a sort of summary of all the rest: it is the life of Christ in a nutshell. It is but another way of saying, “The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister.”
Now in what consists the blessedness of giving?
I. Giving includes Receiving.
“Give, and it shall be given unto you; pressed down, running over,” “Honor the Lord with thy substance, and with the first-fruits of all thine increase: so shall thy barns be filled with plenty.” Scripture after scripture goes to prove that the man who gives receives, though the man who receives, sad to say, does not always give. Receiving is but a province in the larger kingdom of giving. Note, however, that it is giving — not trading, nor paying, nor bartering. If we give with a view to receiving from God, we give not at all. If we give expecting nothing in return, God will make an abundant return. If we give expecting Him to repay, the very nature of the act is changed. He does not promise to give money for money, bond for bond, gold for gold; but He does promise that to those who give He will make returns.
A little boy in London gave to the Lord’s cause one fifth of the prize he won at school. Though never a millionaire, he was the most abundantly blessed of all great preachers.
That boy was Charles H. Spurgeon. God returned to him a thousandfold.
II. Giving Cleanses, while Receiving
and Keeping Pollutes.
“Give of such things as ye have, and, behold, all things are clean unto you” (Luke 11:19). The foulest things in New York are not the sewers, but the money in the pockets of some men who have not given a cent of it to God. The fountain that throws up its sparkling water into the sunlight is made clean by the very process of giving. The Dead Sea, with its black asphaltum, is the foulest of places. No fish live in its waters; no fowl swim upon its bosom; and the secret of its foulness is that it takes the Jordan in at one side and gives off nothing. The Sea of Galilee would be as foul as the Dead Sea, if it gave not off the Jordan that it receives. The man that only takes blessing from God is a Dead Sea; the man that receives from God and gives back of what he receives is a Galilee full of life and beauty. I have heard of a Christian woman who, while poor, gave liberally to several good causes, but, after she had inherited a fortune, she ceased to give anything. One of the deacons waited upon her and asked her the reason. She frankly replied that, while she was poor, she did not know the value of money, but, after she became rich, she saw that one dollar would make another, and it dried up the fountain of her benevolence. Receiving made her narrow and stingy.
On the diary of a good woman in New York, who received five thousand dollars from a friend, were written the words: “Quick, quick, before my heart grows hard.” She had been in the habit of giving a certain portion of all her earnings to the Lord, and, when she found that she had five thousand dollars on hand, the temptation was strong not to give the same proportion, but to keep it for her own use. She felt the polluting process begin, and hastened to counteract it by promptly giving. I knew a man worth fifty thousand dollars whose wife had to give him ten cents every Sunday, to induce him to go to church with her. He explained it by saying, “I have fallen into such a habit of making money that I can do nothing, unless I see some money in it.” Now that man was very little — smaller than ten cents, smaller even than the infinitesimal part of a cent. Ostervalde, a banker of Paris, while on his dying bed, refused to order beef for his broth, because he could not think what disposition could be made of the beef after he had drunk the broth. Receiving had contracted the nature of these misers, until there was scarcely anything of the man left.
III. Giving develops all other Graces.
It is a grace. “As ye abound in everything, in faith and utterance and knowledge, and in all diligence, and in your love to us, see that ye abound in this grace also.” The growth of any grace will develop other graces, just as the growth of any sin will develop all other sins. Giving fosters and increases love. We love those for whom we make sacrifices. The mother loves most tenderly the child for whom she gives the most sleepless nights. I may not understand why God first loved sinners; but, after I have seen Christ on the cross, learned something of how much God has sacrificed for sinners, I understand why He loves them now. If you would attach a man to you, do him a kindness; if you would bind him to you with hooks of steel, get him to do you a kindness. A pastor in Wilmington, X. C, threw a stray dog a bone. The dog returned the next day, and he fed him again. After a few days he began to feel a sort of attachment for the wandering animal, and the more he did for it, the more he liked it. Doing a kindness even to a dog will attach us to it. Giving makes us more cheerful, while receiving may make a man morose and melancholy. Some of the gloomiest, saddest, most forlorn men I ever saw are those who simply know how to hold the strings of their pocket-books, and keep all they have. A Hindoo Christian who was employed by a missionary was noted for his grumbling about hard times. One day when the missionary paid the grumbler his ten rupees, he handed back one of them as a gift to the mission. The next week the missionary noticed that his worker was more cheerful, that he did not grumble about hard times; and asked him what had caused this sudden change to come over him. “Well,” said he, “I never knew what it was to be grateful to God for what He gave me, until I began to give something, and that makes me happy.” Mr. Hamlin, a missionary to Constantinople, declares that paupers can be made industrious if you will only compel them to give something of what they beg to others worse off than themselves.
The practical question is: How can we make giving most blessed? By simply giving as God has directed in His Word. Give regularly, give systematically, give weekly. “Let every one of you on the first day of the week lay by him in store.” This is the only command we have in the New Testament for the observance of any duties on the Lord’s Day. It is fatal to the development of the best Christian character, when a man makes up his mind to wait till he can do something great before he will give at all. Such a man may make a reputation for stinginess and meanness that will ruin his influence. Mr. Guyot, a rich Frenchman in Marseilles, by great energy amassed a large fortune. He refused to give to any object while he was making his money, so that he was regarded as mean, and, when he appeared in public, he was hooted by the populace; but in Mr. Guyot’s will was this sentence: “I have noticed the hardships of the poor in not being able to get fresh water except at great cost, and I have labored hard through my life to accumulate money, that I might put water within reach of all.” Then he goes on to say that he wishes his fortune to be devoted to the building of an aqueduct for the benefit of the poor. Mr. Guyot’s praises are now sung by the people of Marseilles, but it does not atone for a lifetime of bad reputation on account of his niggardliness,
IV. Giving fills Time and Eternity with Joyful Surprises.
I gave one dollar in the first collection ever taken for a Baptist church in the city of Rome, and, when I read of the converts under the labors of our missionaries there now, I feel that I have a part in it. It is bearing interest every month. Those who gave their money to the support of the Telugu mission thought for twenty years that there was no return, but the interest came pouring in with ten thousand converts in one year. Dorcas is doubtless being surprised in heaven every day. She is still gathering the fruits of the sewing society that she organized for the poor. That widow who put in the two mites rejoices with Dorcas in the returns that are still coming in. It will take time and eternity to exhaust the influence of their self-sacrificing acts.