Top o’ the Mornin’ to Ya!
TLDR: Discover why generosity – giving your time, talents, and treasures to others – is 10X more powerful than thankfulness, and how the poorest among us often demonstrate the most Kingdom generosity because they see the real needs around them.
What?
You know what’s better than thankfulness? Generosity. Generosity is like 10X-ing thankfulness. Generosity is giving to others, giving of your time, talents, and treasures to others.
At Bible study this morning, we were reading Psalm 139, and we were talking about just the last phrase in there about “Search me, O God, and examine my heart, my thoughts, my anxiety, and look at that and dig into that and tell me what gives you heartburn, Lord, and clean that up.” As we took that discussion, we really got down into the weeds in how ungenerous we can be.
It seems that the lower your financial status, the lower your socioeconomic boundary level is, the higher your generosity is. There’s a video I watched a couple years ago. I think it’s staged, but it’s still totally hit home because it’s totally true. This drunk is given one hundred dollars and the video follows him into the liquor store right away. And that would be enough for some people to end the show.
But he goes – this liquor store has a little grocery section in it – he goes and he picks up some bread and milk and food and he takes it out of the liquor store with no liquor and he delivers it to this woman with her two kids in the park. It was a made up movie, but it’s completely true, completely realistic.
The lower your socioeconomic status is, the more grounded you are, the more connected you are, the more aware of the situations around you in your world, in your place. Get that in your mind, get that in your head. As a Kingdom Family Leader, as a Christian man, we need to have that Kingdom mindset of where are the real needs? Where can I make a real difference in my home, my church, my community, and the world, like the drunk in this video did, because he saw the needs in his street, saw the needs in his hood.
Why?
I share this because Kingdom Family Leaders who achieve success often become less generous, not more. The higher our socioeconomic status climbs, the more insulated we become from real needs around us. We’re thankful for what we have, but we’re not generous with what we’ve been given.
Thankfulness is good. But generosity is 10X better. Thankfulness stops with gratitude. Generosity extends that gratitude into action – giving your time, talents, and treasures to meet real needs you see around you.
The pattern is backward from what we’d expect. The drunk given one hundred dollars doesn’t buy liquor for himself – he buys bread and milk for a mom with two kids. The person with the least gives the most because they’re connected to real needs in their street, their hood, their world.
Lesson
Generosity is 10X thankfulness because it moves from feeling grateful to actively giving. When you pray “Search me, O God, and examine my heart,” part of what He reveals is how ungenerous we can be. Not just with money, but with time, talents, and treasures.
The socioeconomic generosity pattern reveals something important: the lower your financial status, the higher your generosity tends to be. Not always, but often. Why? Because you’re grounded, connected, aware of situations around you. You see needs because you live close to them.
Success and wealth create distance and insulation. You stop seeing the mom with two kids in the park who needs bread and milk. You stop noticing needs in your street, your hood, your community. Not because you don’t care, but because you’re no longer grounded in the same way.
The drunk in the video saw real needs and made a real difference with the resources he was given. He could have bought liquor – that’s what everyone expected. Instead, he bought groceries and gave them away. That’s Kingdom mindset: using whatever resources you have to meet real needs you actually see.
As Kingdom Family Leaders, we need that Kingdom mindset of where are the real needs, where can I make a real difference in my home, my church, my community, and the world. Not theoretical needs or distant causes. Real needs you can see and touch in your actual world.
Apply
This week, pray “Search me, O God” and ask Him to reveal areas where you’ve become ungenerous. Then deliberately put yourself in closer proximity to real needs – volunteer at a food shelf, serve in your neighborhood, spend time where you can actually see the needs around you. When you see a real need, give your time, talent, or treasure to meet it. Don’t just be thankful – be generous.
You be blessed!
