Crosstraining | 4.13.12

Acts 4:32-36 As we’ve seen this week, the early church grew rapidly after Jesus was raised from the dead. The church grew to over 5,000 people. One of the most amazing things about this early church was their generosity. They sacrificed by selling their land or houses, giving money, and even giving of their time and abilities to help the people around them who were in need. Most of us today would blow this off by saying that selling your house to give to the poor is impractical. Or, they would say that they can’t give away anything more because they wouldn’t be able to support their families. All of that is true. God doesn’t ask everyone to sell off their possessions to give them away. God also is pretty clear in the Bible that He wants us to take care of our families first and foremost. BUT, just because God may not be asking us to make these radical acts of generosity like we see in the early church, He still tells us to be generous. All throughout the Bible, we see that God cares about the poor, needy, and defenseless. He makes it a point to take care of people who can’t take care of themselves. Jesus asks His followers to do the same thing. To be a Christian means that we are generous with our time and resources to help those who can’t help themselves and to see God do amazing things all around us. He may not be asking you to do some crazy, impractical generous thing (but, he might be!), but he is asking us to sacrifice some of what He has blessed us with so He can use it to bless others around us.]]>