How to Serve Others (3 of 6) By James Boice

3. We must give to others. The world says, “What’s mine is mine, and what’s your’s is mine, if I can get it.” The Christian says, “I have nothing but what I have first received from God, and therefore I am only a steward of my possessions. What is mine is yours, if you have need of it.”

In the history of the church there have been Christians who have taken giving to others to the extreme of selling all the have had and distributing it to the poor or giving it to the church for its administration. At one point the Christians in Jerusalem did this (Acts 2:44-45). This is a form of Christian living that God may call some to at one time or another. But it is clear that this cannot be the whole of Christian obligation; for if all Christians in every place and at all times sold their goods and lived a common life in near-poverty conditions, no one would have anything to give to others again. To give to others does not mean that we must give everything or even that we should stop making money through honorable work. On the contrary, for some of us it could mean trying to make more so we will have more to give. It means that we must be generous with what we have, not counting it our own but rather that which God has given to us for others’ benefits.

Then, too, we must not forget that the best giving is often giving ourselves. When Paul wrote to the Corinthians about financial matters he commended the Macedonian churches for their rich generosity, explaining, “And they did not do as we expected, but they gave themselves first to the Lord and then to us in keeping with God’s will” (2 Corinthians 8:5). Clearly, the Macedonians were able to be generous with their money because they had first been generous with themselves. Having given themselves to God and others, their material goods followed naturally.