Mine

I am reading a book called "Free of Charge" by one of my favorite authors, and I was just blown away by something I read. Volf said that if all the "Christians" in the United States gave ten percent of their income to the poor, then the poor of the world could be fed. Most Christians believe that we are called to tithe ten percent to begin with, so, basically, if we all did what God has asked us to do... there would no longer be children dying of starvation in our world.





I had to just sit back and think about that for a minute. It is borderline devastating to me. If we were but faithful as the church, then hunger could end.

Hunger could end.

I just honestly am completely shocked by that. The estimation was that something like 165 billion dollars would be raised. I think that would probably be enough money. Even if it wasn't enough to feed everyone, I can hardly imagine the kind of good we could do with that kind of money. We could build humongous crosses and sanctuaries made of glass, we could have sweet flat screens...

Actually, I think some of that crap is exactly why many don't give. We aren't sufficiently inspired by what our money is going to. We see cool stuff, sure it is great to be able to read powerpoint and to have neat crosses. But do we ever see the irony of making 200 foot crosses? The greatest gift given of all time is suddenly turned into a symbol of wasteful spending. As a church, we must stop spending in ways that make sense to the rest of the world, but in generous, lavish ways that only make sense in the economy of God. We should all be ashamed.