“We love because God first loved us.” (1 John 4:19 GNT)
Generosity begins not with what I give to God, but with what God has already given to me. The Bible says that extravagant, self-giving generosity is the tangible expression of the love that is in the very heart of God. We are generous to others because God has been so extravagantly generous to us.
Generosity is not optional for followers of Jesus Christ. It is the spiritual discipline that shapes our lives around the extravagant generosity of God. Our use of money undergoes a fundamental transformation when we stop asking how much of our wealth we will give to God and start asking how much of God’s wealth we will keep for ourselves. Generosity is the antidote to greed, which is one of the seven deadly sins. Greed is sinful because it is an inherent contradiction of the essential character of God. It is deadly because it results in spiritual arteriosclerosis that blocks the flow of God’s life into our lives and into the world.
-- James A. Harnish in “A Disciple’s Path: Deepening Your Relationship with Christ and the Church”
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