Thoughts on 2 Corinthians 9

Today’s Reading: Exodus 19; 2 Corinthians 9-10

I have a bit of a difficult time with 2 Corinthians 9. Honestly, it is an incredible promise that God makes to us, and is legitimately exciting, but it has been so abused that I’m hesitant, in my own heart, to believe and teach it. But abuse of God’s promise doesn’t make it any less a promise, and when the promise comes from God, we can know He is good for it.

Paul doesn’t mince words and in talking about their financial giving. He starts with this: “Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever owns bountifully will also reap bountifully.” And lest you miss it or misunderstand what he means, Paul goes on over and over and over in the paragraph that follows to repeat the same promise in various ways, that the more we give to the work of God, to more He is going to give us in return.

Even writing that last line makes me feel a bit like a late-night televangelist, and like I need to have you send me money today so the Lord will start blessing you and answering your prayers and healing your cancer or something. It’s disgusting; not what God promises, but how His word is twisted and abused by people looking to make an easy buck off people who love the Lord and want to follow His word, but don’t understand it well enough to not be led astray by smooth preaching.

But here’s the thing, whether it has been abused or not, God does directly promise us, both here and in other places (I have a list I can send you if you want, but I try to keep these daily posts readable, so I’m not including them all this morning), that when we give to His work, He will multiply it back to us, and give us more. And while that feels like a gross win for the con-artists out there calling themselves preachers, there is a really important point they tend to leave out of their “preaching,” that God doesn’t enrich us simply so that we can be enriched, but He enriches us so that we can be even more generous.

God’s insane promise about giving

This is the absolutely amazing but insane thing about this promise:

God is the one who “supplies seed to the sower.” There is no resource we have that He did not give us. And yet, even though our resources are originally God’s, He promises that He will reward us with eternal rewards in heaven when we are faithful to use the resources He has given us for His work and purposes. Not only are we rewarded in heaven though, but, because we have shown ourselves to be faithful stewards of His resources, He promises that He will give us even more to be faithful with, for which He rewards us both in heaven and with more to be faithful with, and on and on and on!

The more we give, the more reward we store up in Heaven, and the more God gives us here so that we can store up even more in Heaven. It honestly feels like a poorly designed game mechanic just waiting to be exploited, but it’s not poorly designed at all. This is the goodness, faithfulness, and generosity of the God we serve. He is a God who delights to give good things to His children and has done everything to set us up for as much reward as we trust Him to give us. It just starts with a question of faith, “Do I trust God is good for His promises enough to put my money where my mouth is?”

The more we believe the truth of this promise, the more it should drive us to give away as much as we possibly can so that God can supply us even more to give. He is good, and He is good for it, but do we trust Him?

God, I need this truth to settle deeper into my heart every day. I want you to have all of my life, and that includes the resources you have given us so that we can be generous with them. Teach me to trust you more fully and, at the end of the day, increasingly put my money where my mouth is in a very practical faith in your promises.