Yet a further step was that unguided sentimental giving can do actual harm. It is wrong in some cases as it is right to give in others. My solution to this side of giving, as indeed to all, was to seek guidance as to where, when and to whom to give.

Finally I began to see that giving was a very concrete way to measure up to Christ’s standards of absolute honesty, absolute purity, absolute unselfishness and absolute love; honesty with God and myself; purity of purpose and motive; unselfishness in denying myself; love in ministering to the needs of others.

And so it came about, slowly, that I began to see not only that formerly I had failed in stewardship by the selfish self-centeredness of the larger amount of money God had at one time given me but that now, as I gave on a basis of guidance, with constant realization that God was intrusting me more and more as I showed trustworthiness, more and more came to me again to give.

Christ’s words in Luke VI: 38 took on new meaning: “Give and it shall be given unto you: good measure pressed down and shaken together and running over shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete it shall be measured to you again.”

And there began to emerge the realization that in my past failure to give to others both in proportion to my income and out of my concern and love, I had broken a great spiritual law—a law as real and definite as the physical law of gravity. Where there is intake there must be outflow, otherwise stagnation results.

I have learned that we must have the same attitude of trusteeship for God and willingness to share our money as we must have in a willingness to share our spiritual treasures, our experiences. Our inner progress is quickened and deepened as we share with others, and it has been my own experience that income increases as we share that also.

The warning in Acts, “Remember the words of the Lord Jesus how he said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive’,” has become so familiar that sometimes it fails to carry significance. But if we go deeper into it we shall begin to comprehend that great command of Christ.

We are God’s stewards, our money is His money however much or little we possess, and His will for us is to share it, and the more we share it, the more He gives us to share. —From The Calvary Evangel.