Generosity

Besides reflecting a humble trust in God, our open hand also signifies generosity.  Deuteronomy 15:7-8 tells us that whenever we encounter a “poor man of your brethren,” we should not harden our hearts, “but you shall open your hand wide to him and willingly lend him sufficient for his need, whatever he needs.”  The wise woman in Proverbs 31 “opens her hand to the poor, and reaches out her hands to the needy” (verse 20 RSV)

My mother was such a wise woman.  One of my greatest childhood memories involes something she did every Saturday night.  She got out all the bills and put them on the table.  Then she opened the checkbook, and the first check she wrote was always to the church.  I saw the box of offering envelopes sitting there, and I watched her week after week give the firstfruits to the Lord.  She was like the woman in Proverbs 31, and I grew up with that living testimony in front of me.

Will your children have similar memories?  Listen to the way the Amplified Bible renders 2 Corinthians 9:7: “Let each one [give] as he has made up his own mind and purposed in his heart, not reluctantly or sorrowfully or under compulsion, for God loves (He takes pleasure in, prized above other things, and is unwilling to abandon or to do without) a cheerful (joyous, “prompt to do it”) giver”—whose heart is in his giving.

David Jeremiah, Signs of Life, p. 171