When one of my daughters was a little girl, her favorite thing in the world was a balloon. And her favorite restaurant was Red Robin because they gave out free balloons.
So, for her 3rd birthday, I thought I would be super-awesome Dad and cover the whole kitchen floor with balloons. And not just a little, but deep. Several layers of balloons deep. That many balloons don’t cost a ton of money. But blowing them up isn’t quick. It took me more than four hours to do it. Honestly, I think it was the most loving thing I had ever done for anyone in my life.
You might say, “Why didn’t you use one of those little pumps to blow them up?” I don’t know. Maybe I didn’t know about them. Maybe this felt more meaningful. Either way, I had the whole kitchen covered three feet deep with balloons. It was epic.
I hid in the corner, and when she came in, her eyes got really wide, and I burst out from the balloons, saying, “Surprise!”
Her response? She picked up a balloon, dropped it, and said, “Daddy, these balloons are broken.”
I said, “What do you mean?”
She said, “They don’t float. I like the Red Robin balloons that float.”
I tried to salvage the situation: “Yeah, but these balloons are better. We can play games with these balloons, like ‘See who can keep the balloon afloat the longest.’” She didn’t buy it. (On Bluey, Bandit was able to make this fun; apparently, I’m no Bandit.)
You see, there are two ways to keep a balloon afloat. If a balloon is filled with your breath, you have to keep smacking it to keep it off the ground. That’s how many people are with their generosity. They need someone, once or twice a year, to “smack” them into giving. All of a sudden, they give out their money left and right, but it only lasts for a short time—that is, until they’re “smacked” again.
There’s another way, of course, to keep a balloon in the air. It’s the Red Robin method: Fill it with helium, and it soars on its own, no smacking required. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 8 that what he wants for his fellow believers is for their love to be so genuine that they don’t need his, or anyone’s, commands to give. He doesn’t want them to give reluctantly or hesitantly but cheerfully and freely, without any compulsion, because an abundance of love overflows in their hearts.
The focus of Paul’s writing isn’t money, it’s grace. Grace that stirs up the kind of instinctive generosity in the hearts of all who experience it. And from that, we get the seven essentials of grace-based giving.
The 7 Essentials of Grace-Based Giving
1. Gratefulness Replaces Guilt (2 Corinthians 8:9–12)
The gospel is not about a God who approaches us with needs. We were unimaginably poor; he was indescribably rich. He’s the giver; we’re the receiver. It is by grace you have been saved through faith, and even that is not of yourselves—it is the gift of God. Christianity is not God asking something from us; it’s about God giving something indescribable to us. Banish from your mind any thought that Christianity consists of God asking things from you, and it will change how you think about generosity.
It’s never about the amount of money we give, as if God has projects he’s trying to fundraise for. Paul says directly in 2 Corinthians 8:12 that if the readiness to give is there, our attitude before God is acceptable. It’s not about the amount. We give according to what we have, not according to what we do not have.
A lot of people feel guilty that they don’t have much to give. Maybe you hear people tell these stories about giving and you think, “Well, I can’t give like that. I can’t even dream about giving like that. I’m so poor that even my dreams are on a budget. I’m so poor that the first item on my bucket list is, ‘save enough money to buy a bucket.’” God couldn’t care less about that. For him, it’s about the heart. Give God your firstfruits, flowing from a generous heart.
2. You Give to the Point of Sharing in Suffering (2 Corinthians 8:13–14)
Paul continues by saying that when you love someone, you will want to share in their needs. Again, this isn’t motivated by compulsion. It’s motivated by love.
Love-based giving is giving to the point that you share the pain of someone else’s need. Think of it like emotionally ministering to someone you love who is hurting. Love feels the pain of need and wants to share in it. When I’m in emotional pain, I don’t need someone with the right answers; I can get those from books. I need people around me who hurt when I hurt because they love me.
This concept inspired what C.S. Lewis called “the only safe rule of giving,” which is giving more than you think you can spare. Because only then are you sharing in someone’s pain, which is the essence of love—taking some of the pain of the need into yourself.
3. You Stop Thinking Like an Atheist (2 Corinthians 8:15)
Back in Exodus 16, we find the story of how God provided manna for the children of Israel in the wilderness. The Israelites were in a place in the wilderness where they couldn’t procure food for themselves, so every night, God miraculously rained down from heaven this stuff called “manna.” The people then were just like us, so they wanted to stockpile it, just in case it didn’t show up one morning—in case God overslept or something. But God caused whatever excess they stockpiled to rot, breed worms, and stink. He wanted them to trust him to provide every single day.
When you hoard and refuse to share what God has given you because you’re afraid that tomorrow there won’t be a God to provide for you, functionally, you’re thinking like an atheist. But when you trust that the God who provided for you today will be there to provide for you tomorrow, you can use whatever excess he’s given to you to meet needs around you today.
4. You Grasp That Giving Is the Gateway to Greater Graces (2 Corinthians 9:6, 10–11a)
Paul says that obedience in giving is the means by which God grows and multiplies the richness of grace in our lives. Giving is like a seed that you put into the ground, and it multiplies into enrichment. You ask, “What kind of enrichment are you talking about?” Paul says, enrichment in every way.
God uses generosity to enrich you in every way—contentment, spiritual anointing, and prayer are only a few examples. And when you realize that, Paul says, you’ll go from “What do I have to give?” to “What do I get to give?” because you’ll be asking: “Where do I want to experience the blessing of God?”
I love the image of sowing a seed here. The fruit of many seeds looks wildly different from the seed itself. For example, have you ever seen a peach seed? It’s this hard, ugly thing you’d never want to eat—it looks like a little rat brain—but from it comes these luscious fruits. Money is like a seed you plant that harvests in multiple fruits, much better than itself.
5. You Understand Why God Prospered You (2 Corinthians 9:11b)
Ponds that just collect water and have no outlet become stagnant and dead. Think of the Dead Sea or the Great Salt Lake. Beautiful … but dead. That’s some of you, which is why you’re not happy. You’ve had so many streams of income, but you’re like the Dead Sea. God didn’t create you to be a stagnant pond; he created you to be a river, and that’s when you’ll be truly happy.
You say, “Well, I’m not rich.” Listen: If you make more than $45,000 per year in total household income, you are in the richest one percent of people in the world. Some of you dream about winning the lottery; just by the fact that you were born here, in America, means statistically, you won the lottery!
With that prosperity comes the responsibility to use it for his kingdom: You are enriched in every way to be generous in every way. Greater financial capacity ought not just to lead to an increase in your standard of living; it ought also to increase your standard of giving. Why does God enrich you? So that you can be even more generous. He blesses you to be a blessing!
6. You Love Seeing God’s Work in People More Than You Do Collecting Stuff (2 Corinthians 9:14)
One of the ways you become a joyful giver is when the thanksgiving toward God that your giving produces in others thrills your heart more than anything else you could do with your money. The writer of Hebrews, urging the Hebrew Christians to keep pressing forward in their journey of faith, said, “[Keep] looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame ...”
What drove Jesus to pour out his life on the cross? Duty? “Oh, I better do this or the Father will curse me?” No. JOY. And what joy was that? What was Jesus thinking about as he went to the cross that brought him joy? You. The joy set before him was the thought of you saved and with him forever in heaven—the thought of you giving thanksgiving to God—that joyful thought is what moved him to make that sacrifice on the cross.
Now you, go and do likewise. The secret to soaring-balloon, no-smacking-required generosity is when the joy of seeing lives changed exceeds any superficial tingle you get from shiny toys or new purses.
7. You Just Can’t Get Over What Jesus Did for You (2 Corinthians 8:9)
Paul writes in 2 Corinthians, “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.” This is the secret of the heart of the Christian who soars in generosity. You just can’t get over what Jesus has done for you.
I’ve had people say to me, “Well, Pastor J.D., this is the problem. I’m a Christian, but I just don’t love Jesus like you do. I don’t feel it. You tell us, ‘Fall in love with Jesus,’ and that kind of frustrates me because I’d love to be as in love with Jesus as you are.” Ah, but don’t you remember? The way God produces that love in you is through giving. Giving is the gateway to greater graces.
Through giving, God makes all grace abound to you, so that you are enriched in every way—which includes your love of Jesus. It’s the same thing Jesus said in Matthew 6:21: “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Wherever you put your time, talent, and treasure, your heart will follow.
Where do you want your heart to be? Put your time and treasure there, and your heart will follow. If you don’t love missions, go on a short-term trip, and you’ll learn to love it. If you want to love heaven more, to love Jesus’ mission more, give sacrificially and watch how it transforms your heart! The Holy Spirit uses your obedience of giving as a means of pouring grace out in your heart, so that you are enriched in every way!
Photo Credit: SWN Design
Pastor J.D. completed his Ph.D. in Theology at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He serves as a member of the Board of Directors of Chick-fil-A, serves as a Council member for The Gospel Coalition, and recently served as the 62nd president of the Southern Baptist Convention. Pastor J.D. and his wife Veronica are raising four awesome kids.
"Editor's Note: Pastor JD Greear's "Ask the Pastor" column regularly appears at Christianity.com, providing biblical, relatable, and reliable answers to your everyday questions about faith and life. Email him your questions at [email protected]."
