It had always been my father’s ambition to own and run his own business.  After spending a good part of his working life in the employ of other and even setting up a business from scratch for one of his employers, he eventually took the plunge.  I’m sure it was quite an undertaking for him risking everything the family had and more in order to find premises, purchase stock and hope that his skills in purchasing the right kind of stock had not left him!

Well I think he did OK, the business ran well enough, none of us starved, though we didn’t become multi-millionaires!  But all of a sudden, or at least it seemed that way, my father changed direction in life when he began training for the ministry of the Church of Scotland.  The business he had worked so hard to establish was wound down so he could concentrate on his studies.

As a family we entered financially uncertain times.  So long as my father was engaged in his studies there was an income from Student Grants and bursaries but holiday times were a little more trying.  If it wasn’t possible to find summer work then State Benefits were pretty much the only option.  Or so my parents thought.  Unfortunately they still owned the shop premises, although the premises were for sale with all the costs of advertising and insurances to pay, owning commercial property excluded them from any benefits, which might otherwise have helped.

I didn’t appreciate it then.  I think I was just to young to understand but I understand it better now – just how much they trusted God to see them through.  They never had a great abundance but they always had enough.  Help came from somewhere or someone at just the right time.

The more I realise how God cared for us and supported us through those years, the more I find I'm able to begin to rely on God even for practical needs.  I'm also able to be more generous with what I have; for I know from experience that God won't let me down.

I think the principle extends to communities too.  I was once part of a church, which struggled to pay its way.  The ruling bodies decided that the church should stop giving money away to charity.  It seemed blindingly obvious to them that "charity begins at home." But when it stopped giving anything away and kept everything for itself, when it became insular to that degree, it was something of a final nail in the coffin, everything started to go wrong and it was never able to pay its way again and became a very unhappy community.

Paul was well aware of the need to give generously to God's work, and of the temptation to give a little ungenerously by those who felt they couldn't afford to give.  When you don’t have much there is always a reaction to hold on to what you have, an inbuilt fear of losing what little you have scraped together – it is anxious and untrusting.

There was a famine in Jerusalem and the Christians there were suffering badly.  Paul rallied the largely gentile churches, which he had founded, to take up a collection for the mainly Jewish Christians in Jerusalem.  He urged the Corinthians to give out of their abundance, not so that they too would be poor, but so that there was some equality between their relative wealth and the extreme poverty in Jerusalem.  He pointed out that everything we have comes from God.  God has given to us abundantly; we're simply asked to give back to God with the same generosity of spirit.  In his argument, Paul used the example of Jesus.  "For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ," said Paul, "that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich."

Jesus gave up everything he had - a home, security, family life, a good job - in order to lead human beings to God.  Jesus then went further and gave up his life to demonstrate his love for human beings.  In doing so he discovered not poverty, but wealth, the wealth that really counts.  Jesus once told a story about a wealthy man who was never content with his wealth and who was unable to give generously to others.  Instead, the man was determined to make more and more money.  But that very night, said Jesus, the man died.  His so-called wealth was worth nothing and he hadn't acquired any "real" wealth at all (Luke 12:16-21).

If we're not generous with our gifts to God, we build up a barrier between ourselves and God because it's a clear sign that we're not willing to allow God to fully take over our lives.  Selfishly holding on to material gain is a sure sign that we don’t fully trust God to look after us.  Paul knew that.  He knew the importance to our souls of generous giving and so he made it a principle in his churches.  He said, "And in this matter I am giving my advice: it is appropriate for you who began last year not only to do something but even to desire to do something-- now finish doing it, so that your eagerness may be matched by completing it according to your means.  For if the eagerness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has--not according to what one does not have."

We can only give what we have.  God doesn't expect us to give what we don't have.  But a cheerful and generous giver is a delight in God's sight.