God-Given Generosity: Why Christian Leaders Can Give More

If you had to give away ONE MILLION DOLLARS, who would you give it to?

That is the question that I asked to my Leadership Mastermind students last week when we were discussing chapter 9 of the book The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader: Becoming the Person Others Will Want to Follow about the indispensable quality of generosity that every leader must possess. Christian leaders should be some of the most generous people in the world.

Ask yourself honestly: Am I more of a giver or a taker? And the way you answered the opening question, "If you had to give $1M away, who would you give it to?" -- the answer will reveal if you are currently more of a giver or more of a taker. As leaders, it's important for us to acknowledge where we are on the spectrum of being a giver and being a taker. Wherever you are on that growth spectrum is okay. 

Why? Because leadership is all about service.

Somebody said, "If service is beneath you, then leadership is beyond you." 

President Calvin Coolidge said, "No person was ever honored for what he received. Honor has been the reward for what he gave."

Christian Generosity: The Widow's Example

How can Christians give more than anybody else in this world? They can give 100% because they receive 1000%... a million percent... from a generous God who they know personally.

You don't have to be rich in material wealth in order to be generous. Let's not forget the story of the widow who gave mites--like pennies--in the offering bag, and Jesus honored her by saying that she had given more than all of the rich people who had put hundreds of dollars into the offering.

The question we need to ask is: "How does a person like that widow get to the point where she wants to give Jesus everything?" She's completely surrendered. She doesn't know where her next meal is going to come from, but she doesn't care. She's going to maximize that moment by worshiping Jesus and giving Him all of her worship, all of her life, everything she owns, all of who she is.

For the rest of this video, I'm just going to be making one very simple point with a couple of examples that I used in class last week:You can serve other people in the way that God serves you.

If you are a Christian like this widow was, then YOU have access to the God who owns the universe. You have access to the God who owns every living creature, who owns every breath that you take. This God is a generous God who serves you generously every day -- from the moment you wake up, to the moment you go to bed, and even as you're sleeping. He is giving and giving and giving. That is the kind of God that you serve, follow, and worship.

Biblical Guidance on Giving Generously

Here are a couple of verses from Scripture to help you understand how you can give to other people in the same way that you have received from your generous God.

• Ephesians 4:32 says, "Be kind and compassionate to one another. Forgive as you have been forgiven."
• John 13:34 says, "As I have loved you, so you must love one another."

Here we see that giving is not just limited to material goods; it's not limited to money. We give love as God has given us His love. We give forgiveness as Jesus has forgiven us of our sins. We give our compassion -- that is a reflection of gratitude for how God has had compassion on us by sending His son, Jesus, to give us what we needed and do for us what we could not do for ourselves.

Generosity Can Be Direct or Indirect

You already know that you don't have to be a Christian to give love and kindness and compassion and even a measure of forgiveness to other people. Unbelievers have these to give to other people and in class. We watched a video from Beast Philanthropy where it shows Mr. Beast saving an orphanage with his team and inviting us as viewers to get involved with this cause. 

This video is a great example of direct ways to give and indirect ways to give.

You see the direct giving of material goods like wood and roofing and flooring and plumbing and electricity and clothes and toys for the kids. But Mr. Beast also gives you a good example of how to give indirectly; you could share the video with other people to spread the word of what was happening at this orphanage, and that would inspire some more viewers to give. You could buy a product from one of the sponsors of that episode of that video, and some of the proceeds would go to that orphanage.

These were ways that were good for us to be reminded of all the things that we can do. Even if you can't go to that orphanage and be on Mr. Beast's team, you can still get involved and you can still be generous toward these people who needed the help.

Giving Your Life

Giving your very life is the most generous act that a person can give to another.

John 15:13 says, "Greater love has no one than this, than a man lay down his life for a friend."

Don't miss a very important fact: you don't have to be a Christian to give your very life for a good cause and for other people. We think of all the people who serve in our military, in our armed forces, our Army, Navy, Marine Corps, police officers, firefighters... These are all noble, honorable jobs that people do on a daily basis at the risk of their own lives.

Is it even possible to give more than your life for your friends? Yes, Christians can give their lives--not just for their friends, but even for their enemies.

Romans 5:8 says, "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."

We are those enemies that Jesus died for when he was nailed to the cross. Once we grasp that reality, the fact that Jesus died for us when we were his enemies and not his friends, it radically changes us from the inside, and that births a new level of generosity toward other people who we consider "enemies."

The Story of Jim and Elizabeth Elliot

Now, there's a very famous story of two missionaries named Jim and Elizabeth Elliot. They are the perfect example of dying for your friends and then dying for your enemies.

Watch their story here on YouTube.

Jim and Elizabeth Elliot were missionaries who decided that they wanted to reach the unreached people group called the Auca in Ecuador. They had a strategy in place: They flew a plane over the region, wanting to descend on and drop gifts to the people to signal that they meant friendship, that they were friendly, that they were not a threat to their tribe. Then, after a while, they felt it was safe to land and to meet the Auca in person. The first meeting was safe, but the second meeting took a tragic turn as five missionaries, one of them being Jim Elliot, were killed by spears. They believed that they had started to befriend the Auca tribe, but they were wrong. They gave their lives for these friends.

But the story doesn't end there. Elizabeth Elliot, Jim's wife, who had a three-year-old daughter at the time, decided that instead of abandoning the mission, she was going to continue it. She decided that she and the sister of one of the other missionaries who had been murdered would live in the tribe of the people who had killed their husbands. Elizabeth now gave up her life generously, as a sacrifice for enemies--the people who had killed her husband.

In the video, you'll see Elizabeth living among the Auca. She cuts their hair; she mothers them; she takes care of them; she becomes one of them. Indeed, a few of the people in the tribe, including the very man who killed her husband, became Christians. Now those Auca are speaking on stages, telling their story of how they have been changed by the good news of Jesus Christ because of the ultimate sacrifice of Jim Elliot,  Nate Saint, and all five missionaries who had been killed by the Auca tribe.

Isn't that amazing? Only Christians can experience that level of generosity: for Jim to lose his life for friends, and for Elizabeth to lose her life for enemies--who later became friends. It's an amazing and awesome story that only God could orchestrate.

The Generosity of God

Now, I don't know where you are with God, but if you have lost touch with the generosity of God, let me just share with you a passage from the book Gentle and Lowly by Dane Ortlund. This is one of my most favorite books that really allows me to get to know Jesus, and it shows Jesus as being a gentle and lowly Lord and Savior--approachable, available, accessible to you.

Here is an excerpt from the book, and hopefully it will give you a picture of the generosity of God.

"A compassionate doctor has traveled deep into the jungle to provide medical care to a primitive tribe, afflicted with a contagious disease. This doctor has had his medical equipment flown in. He has correctly diagnosed the problem and the antibiotics are prepared and available. He is independently wealthy and has no need of any kind of financial compensation.

But as this doctor seeks to provide care, the afflicted refuse. They want to take care of themselves. They want to heal on their terms. Finally, a few brave young men stepped forward to receive the care being freely provided. What does the doctor feel?

Joy. His joy increases to the degree that the sick come to him for help and healing. It's the whole reason he came. How much more if the diseased are not strangers but his own family!

So with us and so with Christ. Christ does not get flustered and frustrated when we come to Him for fresh forgiveness, for renewed pardon, with distress and need and emptiness. That's the whole point. It's what He came to heal. Jesus went down into the horror of death and plunged out through the other side in order to provide a limitless, generous supply of mercy and grace to His people. Christ gets more joy and comfort than we do when we come to Him for help and mercy.

Jesus' deepest impulse, His most natural instinct, is to move toward our sin and suffering, not away from it."

Giving Your All

We can give 100% to other people when we have 1000% from God.  At the end of the day, my prayer is that when my head hits the pillow, that I'm exhausted. I should be exhausted at the end of every day. Why? Because I gave 100%. I gave it all away. I shouldn't have any more to give.

I don't know if you've seen the movie Schindler's List with Liam Neeson, but there's this one scene in the movie that I love and it's at the end of the movie. This movie is about the Holocaust, and Schindler has dedicated his life to saving as many Jews as possible. But at the end of the movie, he takes out a shiny silver pen from his jacket pocket, and he looks at the pen and he says, "The pen. Why did I keep the pen? I could have purchased one more person with this pen."

That's how we should feel at the end of the day--regret if we have held anything back, regret for not giving 100% to other people throughout the day.

So let's be exhausted at the end of the day. Let's go to bed knowing that we have nothing left to give. We have given everything to our school work, our friends, our teachers, our coaches, our teammates, our classmates, mom and dad, the dog, and all the people who needed us that day. We gave. We're exhausted. And that, my friend, is well-earned rest.

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Brenda Jung is a Christian leadership mentor who loves equipping middle and high school students with Christian leadership values and skills so that they can find and fulfill their God-given mission in life. Interested in more Christian leadership development for students? Visit www.weleadthis.com or contact Brenda Jung at [email protected]