We Value Generosity

This article is part of our 7 Core Values series, a seven-year emphasis in the IPHC. Read more about this and the other core values in the 7 Core Values section of our Website.

God Is Love

Isaiah 54 explicitly and strongly conveys the message God is love. While Jerusalem is described as a forsaken wife (54:1, 4, 6), God is the loving husband (54:5). Though Jerusalem was forsaken for a brief moment (54:7, 8) because she had turned away from God, He declared He will call her back (54:6) and will love her with His everlasting “kindness” (54:8; Hebrew, hesed).(1) This is a great word in the Hebrew Scripture, which encompasses the ideas of goodness, kindness, and faithfulness. Since God has entered into a covenantal relationship with his people, His loving-kindness is shown specifically by His fidelity to the covenant. Also, it is a love that is freely given because God is generous, and it is everlasting because God is eternal. During the time of the Old Testament, a husband did not have any obligation to show mercy to his disloyal wife. God, as the husband of Jerusalem, however, was obliged by His own loving-kindness so that He will have compassion on His rebellious people.

Love Is Giving

But love is not just about forgiving; love is giving! What made the outburst of anger to turn into everlasting loving-kindness is the self-sacrifice of God’s suffering servant, as was made clear in the fourth Servant Song (Isaiah 52:13 – 53:12). Historically, this song had been used to illustrate the suffering of the only Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ. In the Hebrew Scripture, prophets Jeremiah, Amos, and Zechariah spoke of the great pain God would bear (Jeremiah 6:26; Amos 8:10; Zechariah 12:10). This helps us to feel the weight of God’s love, for the giving of the Son is the summit of that love. When Jesus said to Nicodemus in John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,” He was not talking about a love without cost; to the contrary, it is a love that had caused the giver unfathomable pain, the greatest loss one could ever have imagined! Through God’s example, we learn that to love is to be radically generous, not just giving one’s surplus, but to the point of giving one’s life.

On Giving and Stewardship

Our Lord Jesus, as the exact representation of God’s nature, taught us radical generosity and stewardship in the parable of the unmerciful servant (Matthew 18:21-35) and the parable of the talents (25:14-30) respectively. In the first parable, we are told that God is a loving master moved with compassion to cancel the debt of a servant, for the debt was too big for the servant to pay back by many lifetimes of labor. This same servant, who was shown such mercy, however, threatened to send one of his fellow servants to jail until he could pay him back. Jesus told His disciples in the Farewell Discourse (John 13-17) that, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (15:13). Once again we see, love is giving, and even radical giving of one’s life; and Jesus’ disciples were urged again and again to “love one another” according to the example Jesus had set for them (13:34, 35; 15:12, 17).

In the second parable, we are informed that God entrusts us with everything we have at His sole discretion. We are not called to judge whether we have received too much or too little, but are to make use of all our talents for the purpose of serving the Lord, both faithfully and humbly. The most desirable recognition we can have from the Lord at the end of the day is, “Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!” (Matthew 25:21, 23) Our late Presiding Bishop B. E. Underwood clarified in his book Spiritual Gifts that there are two types of gifts in the letters of Paul, namely the “ministry gifts” (Ephesians 4:11) and the “manifestation gifts” (1 Corinthians 12:8-10). While Christ gave us “according to the measure” ministry gifts (Ephesians 4:7), the Holy Spirit “distributed to us just as He wills” the manifestation gifts (1 Corinthians 12:11), thus we are able to equip one another and to edify the church. Therefore, as the theologian Millard Erickson puts it, “Stewardship does not mean giving God a part of what is ours, some of our time or some of our money. All of life has been entrusted to us for our use, but it still belongs to God and must be used to serve and glorify Him.”(2)

“It Is More Blessed to Give than to Receive”

When the apostle Paul gave his farewell speech to the elders of the church at Ephesus, he reminded them with the words of Jesus “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35). As giving turns our eyes to others, it is the best cure to the sin of selfishness. In giving, we are concerned with those who are truly in need, and thus sets us free from our endless desires in this material world. Years ago a Time Magazine (US) poll revealed, “most people find happiness in family connections and friendships.”(3) This result vividly illustrates the point. Jesus rebuked those who sought to accumulate material things for their earthly life, for life is much more than that. These people had enjoyed riches for their own selves, yet they were not rich toward God and were therefore considered fools (Luke 12:16-21).But how is it more blessed to give than to receive? To Stephen Post and Jill Neimark, it is a more satisfactory life. In Why Good Things Happen to Good People, they explored the extraordinary power of giving with evidence of recent scientific research. The subtitle of this book is worth-noting, “The Exciting New Research That Proves the Link Between Doing Good and Living a Longer, Healthier, Happier Life.” Here are some quotes from the book:Giving is the most potent force on the planet. Giving is one kind of love you can count on, because you can always choose it: it’s always within your power to give. Giving will protect you your whole life long.(4) Generous behavior is closely associated with reduced risk of illness and mortality and lower rates of depression. Even more remarkable, giving is linked to traits that undergird a successful life, such as social competence, empathy, and positive emotions. By learning to give, you become more effective at living itself.5Give love, and you’ll discover life in all its force, vitality, joy, and buoyancy. In generosity lies healing and health.(6) It is important to hold on to this: it is more blessed to give than to receive, but we are not to give with the expectation of being blessed. Paul understood the principle of giving for he devoted his greatest efforts in collecting gifts for the poor in Jerusalem from Gentiles churches. When we give, we express our trust in God and confess that He is the only benefactor. Furthermore, giving does not only remind us of receiving; giving is indeed receiving, and what we receive is joy! For we know that, when we are able to give anything to others, it is because we have already received something from our munificent God, who is not only abundant but willing to give as well. This understanding leads to gratitude, and it is with gratitude that we are able to give. The effect of giving can extend beyond generations. It is true that the Wing Kwong Pentecostal Holiness Church is a generously-giving church. However, we would humbly admit that the Wing Kwong Church is simply one of the fruit of World Missions. What the Wing Kwong Church does today is simply a return to the 100 years of generous giving of our brothers and sisters in the States, especially our missionaries to Hong Kong and those who generously gave to facilitate the completion of Wing Kwong College in the 1970s of the last century.

We Are Called to Be Radically Generous…

Based upon the above biblical foundations, and in the light of Isaiah 54 particularly, Presiding Bishop Dr. Doug Beacham Jr. has urged us to focus on the dual themes of a “Place of Hope” and a “People of Promise.” One of the ways to realize this vision is to lead a life of radical generosity.

…Radically Generous to World Missions

From the very beginning, the IPHC has been a mission-oriented church. The reason why Rev. J. H. King was not elected as the first Superintendent of the merged IPHC in 1911 is interesting and illustrating. He was on mission to China. Dr. Frank Tunstall recorded in his book The Simultaneous Principle many stories of how our ancestors devoted themselves in missions all over the world without reservation. The words of Jesus in John 4:35 are still valid, “I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.” We need people who generously give themselves as reapers!Those who are not called to vocational missions can participate through vigorously praying for our missionaries and the needs of their mission fields. They can also support missions by monetary offering. The idea of the “Global Outreach” Offering is a fascinating one. It helps to open the eyes of our brothers and sisters to look far afield into the needs of the world outside the continent where they inhabit. It is by this “GO” offering that world missions are set in motions!

…Radically Generous to People in Need

In Latin, the word “compassion” is composed of pati (“to suffer”) and com (“together”), which give it a literal meaning of “to suffer with.” Thus it is by definition that a compassionate person is one who suffers by feeling another’s pain. True compassion will never be isolated from actions of love, and those actions of love will never lead to hard feeling or a sense of inferiority to the ones who receive. Remember the words of our Lord Jesus, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers or sisters of mine, you did it for me” (Matthew 25:40). Being radically generous to people in need is a noble act. Disaster Relief USA (DRUSA) is a strong arm of IPHC Discipleship Ministries, which allows brothers and sisters to help those who are in great need due to unexplained and sudden blows in life. At times we received encouraging reports from DRUSA shortly after a certain country or city was devastated by either a natural or man-made calamity. By extending our helping hands to people in need, we literally turn a desolate place into a place of hope.

…Radically Generous to Our Neighbors

In answering the question what is the greatest commandment, our Lord Jesus said, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these” (Mark 12:30, 31). Love can be far-reaching, but it can also be extended tangibly to our neighbor.In fact, every person is a person in need of something. We are called to be radically generous to our “neighbors,” literally the people around us. To give our spouses a long and tender bear-hug, to smile to the passers-by, and to say a heartfelt “thank you” to those who serve us. All these are simple ways of giving, yet they are able to rescue our society from indifference, hostility, envy, distrust, and disrespect.Let us admit that it is always within our power to give. The IPHC prayerfully values radical generosity. We strongly believe that by putting giving into practice, “Together we can make a world of difference!”

Notes

1. Scripture Quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the New International Version (NIV).

2. Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology, 2nd Edition (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1998), 511.

3. Time Magazine, <http://content.time.com/time/interactive/0,31813,2028980,00.html>.

4. Stephen Post and Jill Neimark, Why Good Things Happen to Good People: The Exciting New Research That Proves the Link Between Doing Good and Living a Longer, Healthier, Happier Life (New York: Broadway Books, 2007), pp. 1-7

5. Ibid, p. 2

6. Ibid, p. 7