Money in the Word Episode 10: 2 Corinthians 9:7-8

In this video, we take a look at 2 Corinthians 9:7-8 with Ben Wacek, CFP®, CKA®,  of Guide Financial Planning, and how it applies to us today.

Hi, my name is Ben Wacek. I am one of the financial planners here at Guide Financial Planning and I'm so glad that you've joined us for another episode of Money in the Word.

Let's go ahead and dive in and take a look at the passage that we'll be going through today. So the passage that we're going to be going through is found in 2 Corinthians. Just a little bit of context on this book, so first and second Corinthians were books that were written by the Apostle Paul, and they were written to the church of Corinth. There were a lot of issues going on in the church of Corinth, and this specific portion of this second letter is Paul basically giving the opportunity to the church of Corinth to support the Christians in Jerusalem. And again, it actually starts in chapter 8 and then it continues in chapter nine. And again, just love the whole passage, the part that I'm going to specifically focus on today is the 2 Corinthians 9:7-8. So I'll go ahead and read again these words of the Apostle Paul to the church of Corinth. He says, "Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all, times you may abound in every good work."

Now I really love this passage and I think that there's a natural tendency for me and for others to focus on the first part of this verse. Just this idea that it's talking about giving and that we should not give reluctantly or under compulsion, but that we should give cheerfully. And again, this is sometimes a hard thing because you want to know, you know, if you're like me you want to know a set of rules or of, you know, what percentage of my income should I give, you know? How much should I give? And he doesn't give these instructions here, he's just saying don't give reluctantly or under compulsion, but give cheerfully.

I want to do actually before we look at this first part of the verse is take a look at the second part of this verse, because I think it really informs, you know, how to give cheerfully by looking at the second part. And so the second part, I'll just read it again it says, "God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work." And so the reason I want to highlight this is because God's generosity to us is clearly displayed here. I just love again these things that it says that God does. He is able to make his grace abound in you, he's able to give you sufficiency. You're sufficient, you don't need anything more in all things, at all times, so that you may abound in every good work. So when we look at the character of God here, we just see this outpouring of everything that he gives to us. He gives us grace, he gives us sufficiency, he gives us just makes us abound in every good work. And so when we see God as this amazing Gift Giver, who is an incredibly generous God, it really transforms the way that we think about our own giving. The fact that, you know, even all the financial resources that we have are given to us by God in the first place. And we might think, you know, we've earned, we've worked hard to earn that and that's true, hopefully we have worked hard to earn that. But ultimately, it's God who even gives us the ability to earn that income and gives us the skills to do that.

And so again, when we start out with God and his generosity, and then we look at this first part, I think it really changes the way that we look at this. You know, there's really not compulsion that we're giving under,  or we don't have to do that reluctantly. When we see God for who he really is that changes our hearts and it makes us want to pour out and give what has been given to us back to God, and back to others, so that ultimately God is glorified in that. And I don't think this is saying that "well then giving is just going to become easy" and you know, "we're always just going to want to give freely," and "we're going to give all of our money away." I don't think that it's saying that, because I think there are times just life can be hard, and there's demands of life that does take financial resources. To be able to to raise children, to be able to stop working for an income someday, to be paying for health expenses, to be paying for, again, experiences that you're wanting to create. For food and for housing, again, all those things cost money and yet I think that it just changes our overall way that we think about our financial resources when we recognize first God's generosity to us.

And so that's really my thing that I wanted to focus on in this passage today and would just love to close us in a prayer as we wrap up. Lord, we just thank you for your incredible generosity to us. You are a God that has given so much for us as we see in this passage. And first and foremost, you gave us your Son, Jesus Christ, who gave his life up for us on a cross so that we can be saved and we can live in eternity with you. And so I pray that you help us today to view everything that we have as a gift from you, and that we can in turn give that back to you, give that back to other people with a generous heart. And to do that cheerfully. So Lord, I pray that you would be working in our hearts to help us to do those things. We pray these things in your name. Amen

Thank you again for joining us for this episode of Money in the Word. If you'd like to get more episodes like this or be alerted, would love for you to subscribe to this channel, to like this channel. It also helps other people to be able to find this resource, as well. Thank you so much for your time.