Sermon Illustrations
Giving Extravagantly in Light of God's Extravagant Gift
Mike Erre writes in Men of Integrity:
My wife and I refinanced our house and cashed out what was (for us) a large sum of money. I spent several weeks dreaming of ways to spend it.
It was near Christmas, and I had been studying the birth of Jesus and what it would have meant to those who heard about it first. As I was praying and prepping for the messages I would teach in the weeks of December, God brought into my mind that to take this whole "love thy neighbor" thing seriously, my wife and I should give away more money than we spend on ourselves this Christmas. (Although I didn't realize it at the time, God had placed the same message in my wife's heart.)
With tears of great joy and freedom, my wife and I agreed and then proceeded to ask the dangerous and wonderful question, "Okay, Lord, who's going to get all this money?"
We had a blast giving it away and living the revolution of Christmas as we celebrated the giving of God's Son—what Paul called "a gift too wonderful for words!"