Generosity With Time

One

Christ’s Command to Give to the Poor

Jesus clearly wants us to give to the poor. The gospel is packed with Christ urging his followers to be generous to those in want. And there are plenty of people who are still poor today. Plenty of people who don’t have enough food, water, shelter, money, etc. And we have to be generous to those people.

The problem is, most of those people aren’t in the developed world. The people who are poor because of scarcity are still largely in the developing world – and we have to be generous, but we can only be generous from a distance.

But if we want to serve Christ, actually serve Him in the face of the poor, what are we supposed to do?

If you see a homeless guy at a stoplight, it would be terribly irresponsible to just hand him a thousand dollars cash because that guy’s problem probably isn’t just that he doesn’t have enough money. It probably goes deeper than that.

In the developed world, in places like the US, Canada, and most of Europe, poverty is different. We have a type of poverty that can’t be solved by money.

Two

The New Poverty

For the first time in human history, we have a situation where poor people are more likely to suffer from obesity instead of starvation. That’s incredible. That’s never happened before. 

It’s a real poverty, but it’s not based on a lack of available food. And no matter how much money the government throws at this poverty, it refuses to go away.

Because it’s not just a material poverty. People in first world countries don’t lack food, water, clothes, or shelter. What they lack is another person, a friend. 

Everyone needs one person they can count on, one person who cares about them, who has their back. Everyone needs a friend to talk with, someone they can express their ideas, desires, feelings, concerns, and fears. Everyone needs someone to help them navigate life.

No one can make it alone. I don’t care how successful you think you are. And if you think you are a self-sufficient, responsible, innovator, problem solver, producer, and you don’t need others then you are blinded by pride. The most successful people have other people they rely on, lean on. In fact, that is in large part why they are successful.

But what if you don’t have that? What if you have no one? The new poverty is a poverty of relationship. And it can’t be solved by money. It takes something else, something more precious, to alleviate it.

Three

The New Wealth

There’s a new poverty in the world today, and there’s also a new way of being rich.

Today, we don’t just admire people for the size of their bank account. We admire them for being successful and accomplished, for making an impact.

Money is one measure we use for making an impact, but there’s also fame, leadership, and influence. These are all the metrics we use for “success”. And it takes a lot of work to become successful. To become a leader in your field.

So what do successful people value more than anything else? What’s more precious to them than their money? 

Their time.

Four

The New Money

We hear it over and over again, “Time is money.”

And, in fact, time is more valuable than money. After all, we can always increase our money, but we can’t do anything to increase our time, which is continually slipping away.

Well, the Gospel demands that the rich give away a lot of their money to the poor. And if the new rich are the successful. And the new poor are the people who are alone, the people who have no one. And the new money is time. Then the new rich, those who are successful in business, in medicine, whatever your field, need to give of their time. That means that successful people need to give away a lot of their time to dysfunctional people.

You should still write your checks to help out the poor in the third world but that’s relatively easy.

If you want to serve Christ face-to-face, if you want to minister to the poor all around you, then you need to give time to someone who needs another person.

And trust me, you won’t have to travel to the third world to find them. They’re all around you: at work, at Church, and especially in your own family. Especially your extended family.

So give to Christ by giving your time to them.

Five

You can’t afford NOT to waste time on people in need.

Rich people often claim they don’t have much money. They often act like they can’t afford to give much to the poor. But of course, the measure of how wealthy they are is how much money they spend on things they don’t need.

Well, the same goes for successful people, they claim they’re too busy to give to the poor. They have too many obligations, too much going on. But, of course, look at how much time they waste!

The average person spends over two and a half hours on news, entertainment, and social media every day. Two and a half hours!

How can we say we don’t have time to call a family member we have a hard time with, or an elderly parent, or to have that lonely family over for dinner, or go get coffee with the guy from work that would obviously appreciate someone to talk to?

You have to do it. The successful can’t afford not to give time to someone who is in need, to someone who is alone. Because that person who is alone is Christ. And at the end of our lives, we want Him to say, “I was alone – and you spent time with Me. Welcome into the Kingdom prepared for you.”