Quite often charity work is said to be linked to love but is that claim
true or else charity work is motivated by something else other than love?
Alms giving is not supposed to be a duty, a way of courting blessings
or a religious rite because such a situation is alien to the manner God rewards
his people. God is not after your alms but he is after the attitude of your
heart whenever you do alms. Alms giving must instead be a direct act of love
because without love all our efforts and gifts to the poor are meaningless. In
Corinthians 13:3 Paul pointed out that loveless giving or giving for the sake
of fulfilling a religious obligation is an empty and vain performance. It is
mere drama. Alms giving and love are compatriots and are very difficult to
separate and the same can be said concerning all other forms of giving.
Love is one thing which is very
difficult to weigh up and it is the only thing which Solomon said in Songs 8:6
is as strong as death. All other things under the sun are reversible except
death. Sickness and disease can be reversed as soon as the appropriate care;
treatment or medication is administered to the patient. Wealth and riches as
well as poverty are reversible. Even national laws are reversed hence the
numerous amendments and repeals. Under the sun one of the very few things that
is irreversible is death. Once a person dies any hope of life immediately
fades. Even a person’s riches and power cannot bring a dead person back to
life. Hospitals have no special wards or units for reviving dead people because
once a person dies he is departed. Undertakers are aware that death is
irremediable hence many methods of disposing off the dead.
Solomon compares love to death
because love, I mean genuine love, like death is irrevocable. When God loved
men he could not invalidate his love for men. His love for men led him into
taking on the form of men and eventually the death of a criminal on the cross
of Calvary just because of his love for men. We are told that he loved the
world so much that he gave his only begotten son so that anyone who believes in
him would not die but have everlasting life, a clear indication that love is
not only as strong as death but is stronger than death. Love is so strong that
it even gives away one’s life. Christ loved us so much that he gave us that
thing very dear to any human being, his very own life and position. Jesus took
our reproach and sin in exchange for his righteousness and divine nature
because he loved us. In his own words in John 15:13 the Lord said, ‘greater love
hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.’
Whenever you read about love and
giving, love always comes before giving. In other words, it is love that gives
and not giving which shows love. When you have love, that which is in you will
give away. So instead of giving in order to show love, love itself will reveal
itself in giving. Peter and John came across a beggar when they were penniless
but because they had love, that love within them revealed itself through
giving. It is said that when the two came face to face with the beggar, the
beggar asked them to give him alms. Peter, who then was broke financially, said
to the beggar, ‘silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee.’ So,
Peter had something to give.
Although he did not possess
dollars and cents he had something, which he gave the lame beggar. He had the
love of Christ within him and that love was boiling within him and was pushing
itself out so that it could display itself in giving. Although there was no money
to give, that love was however ready to give because love has no limitation.
The force of the love of Christ was so strong in Peter that he promised the
beggar something. Because of this strong love Peter said, ‘ … but such as I
have give I thee: in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk.’
Acts 3:1-10. You know the rest, the man stood up and walked and religious
leaders jailed Peter and John for the crime of doing a good work.
Was it Peter who gave the poor
crippled man health? No, it was Jesus Christ of Nazareth who did it through
Peter and John. Peter himself confessed this fact. In Acts 5:11-16 doctor Luke
reports that when Peter perceived what was going on in the minds of the crowd
he said to the people, ‘ye men of Israel, why marvel ye at this? Or why look ye
so earnestly on us, as though by our own power or holiness we made this man to
walk. The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our fathers,
hath glorified his son Jesus … and his name through faith in his name hath made
this man strong; whom ye see and know.’ So, you see that it was not Peter but
Christ working through Peter. Isaiah tells us that because of his love for us
Jesus bore our sins and carried all our diseases in his own body. Because of
this strong love, he gave health to the lame man and he did it through Peter
because of the latter’s love for his Lord and fellow man. If Peter and John did
not have this love they would simply have wished the unfortunate man well or
would have merely passed without being moved by his plight.
The thirteenth chapter of Paul’s
epistle to the Corinthians tells us that love is longsuffering and kind: is not
jealousy or boastful; it is not arrogant and is not puffed up. It is further
said that love is not selfish. True love is not selfish because verse 5 reads,
‘charity … seeketh not her own.’ If you give for selfish ends, then know that
you do not have love. Love does not seek its own gain but the success of
others. John 3:16 does not say that God loved the world and gave his son so
that he would have worshippers or loyal followers. God gave his son so that the
beneficiaries of that love would have life and have it abundantly. He gave for
the purpose and profit of men and not for his own gains. If the entire human
race were to perish God would not have lost anything at all but he loved us
anyway. Man, sinned against God but it is God who first loved man and sought
reconciliation with man. Did it ever occur to you that we never loved God and
probably we do not love God? Our love for God is in response to his love for us
so it is his love for us that drives us to love him. Our love is responsive
whilst his is not responsive. He loved us when we were still in sin and when we
were still camped in the compounds of his arch enemy, the devil. Before we had
regretted our sinful nature and before we had repented of our sins, Christ died
for us. My friend, that is love, first class love. Today you tell me that you
love God, did you ever love him before he loved you or would you do it had he
not sought to reconcile you to him. Our love for him is in response to his love
so we greatly need his love to operate within us.
When we have God’s love in us we will terminate selfishness within us.
The problem with human love is that it gives in order to receive but the love
of God gives for the benefit of the recipient. Some of us give alms because the
book of Proverbs says that he who gives to the poor lends to the Lord and the
Lord will pay him back with good returns. If that promise had not been written,
we would not give because giving would not have returns and that is not love at
all. Many teachers who teach giving place emphasis on the promise rather than
the act of giving itself because it is evident that most human beings lack
genuine godly love. True love is not selfish and does not seek its own gain but
the wellbeing and success of others hence promises cannot activate it but the
promises merely guarantees that the God of life is pleased or is elated by the
activities of that love. If your giving is motivated by promises instead of
love you need to be delivered from selfishness. It certainly is the right time
you implored God to impart into you a fraction of his pure selfless godly love.
Selfishness is daily being preached in this generation without shame on
many pulpits at the expense of true godly and self-sacrificing love that was
manifest in Christ. If love had been accorded its rightful place, the world
would have long known and confessed that we are indeed the Disciples of Christ.
The Lord’s doctrine on giving is often greatly distorted to promote egotism and
insatiability by making love depend on the purported rewards of giving for the
sake of handsome returns. We are taught to give for the sole reason of gain, a
principle that is at variance with the standard of love. It is very true that
God will reward us for giving but our love must never be a means of amassing
rewards but our acts must be for the purpose of revealing the love of our Lord.
When we give for the sake of receiving rewards, our giving will become that of
duty rather than of love. God knew very well that the majority of mankind would
reject Christ and that only a minority would believe in Christ but he still
gave us his Son even before we had repented of our sins. He very well knew that
of the generation that came out of Egypt only Moses, Caleb and Joshua would remain
loyal to him yet he delivered the entire nation including those who doubted
him. That is how love functions
I grieve very much when I see Luke chapter six being turned into a tool
of self-centeredness. Instead of teaching people to give out of love, multitudes
are taught to give for the sake of egotistical gains. Paul in 1 Corinthians
13:3 said, ‘though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor … and have not love,
it profiteth me nothing.’ Today there are many who give sacrificially not out
of love but for the sake of gains that will accrue to them because of that
giving. I am not very happy to announce that such type of giving is done in
vain. What does it profit, my brethren, if a man gives all that he has and in
return acquires the fruition of all promises pertaining to giving but does not
have love. Is such giving pleasing to the Lord? Is not the giving of love what
God requires from you who call upon the name of his only begotten son? This is
what the Lord seeks in your giving, love, and the fear of God, mercy and faith.
The great doctrine of give and it shall be given unto you was not
taught within the context of offerings or tithes but within the context of
assisting others and the perspective of sharing love with fellow man. Here the
Lord was teaching his servants to give not only to their friends but also to
strangers and those who hated them. This great doctrine is found in the book of
Luke chapter 6 verses 30 to 38 and is within the background of showing mercy
and love, giving to people not expecting a return. In some way, the Lord was
teaching the saints not to seek rewards but the perfection, which is found only
in the Father. It is not God but men who has shifted the doctrine of give and
it shall be given unto you from showing love and helping our fellow humans to
that of giving offerings for the purpose of selfish gains. Men give in order to
receive more and nothing more. Jesus the great shepherd of our souls taught
this doctrine using the following words, which I beg you to analyse very
closely. ‘I say to you … love your enemies, do good to those who hate you … and
as you would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise. If you do
good to those who do good to you what thank have you? For sinners also lend to
sinners, to receive much gain. But love your enemies, and do good, and lend
hoping for nothing again: and your reward shall be great, and you shall be
children of the Highest: for he is kind to the unthankful and evil. Be merciful
therefore as your Father also is merciful … Give and it shall be given to you;
good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men
give into your bosom. For with the same measure that you measure with it shall
be measured to you again.’
To me here Christ is not saying
give ‘so that’ it will also be given back to you but he is merely affirming a
fact that if you give you will one day discover that what you gave is always
given back to you. You do not give so that you will receive back in the same
manner unbelievers are motivated to give in anticipation of profits someday but
you must give hoping for no return because you already have a greater reward in
that you are a child of Almighty God. He is saying that even if you give
expecting no return, returns will still come because people will still give you
on the basis of your measure in giving others. The Shonas have a proverb that
says that a gift goes where another gift came from or one good turn deserves
another. Now if your measure is not of love but of self-gratification never
expect a measure of love back. One day someone is going to give you so that he
may also obtain gains through giving which in short means that you will be his
tool for his personal gain.
Secondly giving that comes out of love cannot make a distinction
between a friend and an enemy. Godly love just gives even to those who are
hostile to it. When Herod sought to kill baby Jesus God still made his oxygen
available to Herod so that he would still breath. When the Jews and the Romans
killed the Son of God, God still allowed them to live in the hope that they
would repent and be partakers of the salvation of Christ. After they had
ridiculed Christ and crucified him like a criminal together with hard-core
criminals, Christ still forgave them thereby extending his love to people who
had declared themselves his enemies. Even Stephen also extended his love and
forgave those who were painfully terminating his life by stoning and because of
that which he gave a great missionary and teacher in the name of Paul came into
the church. Stephen gave Saul his love and in return God gave the church the
apostle Paul who was ready to shed his own blood for the cause of the gospel
for which Stephen died. Love knows no barriers. True love conquers hatred and
it does not believe in abhorrence. Imagine, Saul who fought against the love of
God because of his abhorrence of the church was later the very same Paul who
was prepared to die for Christ because of his love for Christ and the church.
It surely is true that the greatest gem is love.
Where does love start? Love does not come from a vacuum but it comes
from the Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel. We will never know true
love until we have known God who is himself love. If we desire the love of God
to operate within and through us we must start by accepting his love and giving
ourselves to him unreservedly. One day a learned lawyer from the fold of the
Pharisees asked the Master which law was the greatest. The Prince of Peace
said, ‘thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy
soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And
the second is like unto it, thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these
two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.’ Jesus did not give only
one law but two that are so great that the entire Bible revolves around them.
If you take away one of them from the Bible the Bible will simply collapse and
so will our faith and hope. I mean that we will cease to have the law, the
prophets, the gospels, the Acts, the epistles and the apocalypse. The Christian
faith and doctrine will disintegrate without these two commandments. Even
Judaism will cave in without the two commands. The two commandments deal with
one very important thing called Love. Our salvation stands because of that one
thing because God loved us because he is love. Do you love God? Read again
carefully and analytically Matthew 22:36-40.
In other words, Jesus was saying
that if you want to fulfil the demands of The Law and The Prophets you must
accomplish the requirements of this twofold law. So, our starting point is to
love God with our entire being, which is the whole human being. Everything that
constitutes me, that is my spirit, soul and body, must love the Lord. If we do
not love God we will not be able to obey him. The first important thing is that
we must give ourselves wholly to the Lord. Daniel was ready to become the
lions’ dinner and never sought to defend his life because of his love for his
God. Even the fear of the Lord cannot be found where the love of God is absent.
Stephen died a slow and painful death because of his love for the Lord. He had
surrendered his life and whole being to the Lord and never lived for himself
but for he whom he loved. That is how precious and strong love is. It is so
strong that Solomon in Songs 8:7 said, ‘many waters cannot quench love, neither
can floods drown it: if a man would give all the substance of his house for
love, it would be utterly contemned.’ When we begin to love the Lord, no flood
will be able to put out that love. Read Revelation chapter six where you will
learn of millions who died because of their love for the Lord.
Loving the Lord with our entire beings entails surrendering our whole
selves to him. Did he not do the same for us? He became man for our sakes and
died for us because of his love for us. If we truly love him we must cease to
live for ourselves but for him who died for us. If you never counted the cost
of following Christ, you better do it now. You will have to love the Lord and
by that, I mean that since love delights in giving, you will have to give your
entire being and freedom to the Lord. You will have to cease living for
yourself and start to live for the Lord. The Lord’s enemies will become your
enemies and they may seek to destroy your life but because of your love for the
Lord you will not be able to defend your interests but the interests of the
Lord. In Matthew 16:24-26 the Lord said, ‘if any man will come after me, let
him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.’ In simple words, he is
saying that if you want to follow him you must put your life at risk for his
sake. A cross is not a symbol of luxury but of suffering and of certain death.
If you are to carry your cross were will you take it to? You will take it to the
place of slaughter where your own life will be taken away from you on your own
cross. Friend, that is the cost of following Christ.
The love of God gives and it is because of that love that Christ gave
his own life for us and it also follows that if we love God we will have to
give him our lives too. Forget about offerings, tithes, alms and gifts because
they are not enough if we truly love the Lord. For us who truly love the Lord,
we will have to give him that which is dearest to us, our very lives. The most
valuable thing to you is your own life and if you really adore God you will
have to give it to your God. If you are yet to give God your life, you better
hurry up and surrender it to him. I am glad to confess that I no longer live
for myself but for him who died for me and if I were to die today for his sake
I will have nothing to lose because it is his life that I now live. You cannot
steal my life because I gave it to the Lord way back in August 1979. It is very
simple; when you give, you will cease to possess what you will have given. It
will belong to the one you gave. When Paul was still a Pharisee he learnt it
the hard way. Out of Pharisaic zeal he went about persecuting a group of people
he never knew had given their lives to Christ. Paul did not know that the
people he was persecuting had long ceased to live because they had long given
their lives to the Lord they very much loved and the life they lived was for
Christ. So when Paul came face to face with the Lord, the Lord said to him,
‘Paul why do you persecute Me.’ He never said why do you persecute my church
because that church had surrendered and given itself to him long back and was
consequently now living for him who died for it. This reality is central to our
Christian faith.
If you think that loving the
Lord demands a lot and therefore decide to keep your life let me give you a
small priceless advice. If you lose your life you will find it but if you find
your life, I am afraid you will lose it. That is God’s principle and I do not
understand how you lose something by keeping it and you gain something by
losing it but I have no problem believing it. Daniel lost his life; they gave
him to the lions but the lions refused to dine on someone who was living for
some Great One. When Daniel’s accusers who still held on to their cherished
lives were cast to the lions’ den, the lions had a feast and the unfortunate
guys discovered when they were settling down in the lions’ bellies that they
had lost their lives in the process of preserving the same lives. On his way
home Daniel discovered that he had found his life in the process of losing it.
Jesus lost his life for our sake but today he is alive and sitting at the right
hand of the Father.
The second important law is that we must love our neighbours as
ourselves. One man asked who his neighbour was and the Lord indicated through
the parable of the Good Samaritan that every human being is our neighbour. So,
this law directs us to love all our fellowmen. In other words, we must love all
mankind including those who hate us. In his doctrine, the Lord in Matthew
5:43-48 taught, ‘love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them
that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;
that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven … For if you love
them which love you, what reward have ye? Do not even the publicans the same?
And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? Do not even
the publicans so? Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in
heaven is perfect.’ Godly love knows no enemy. Jesus prayed for his enemies
whilst hanging on the cross because love can never be quenched by hatred.
Solomon said floods couldn’t quench the flames of love.
When we love
our fellowmen, we will find it easier to bear one another’s burdens because the
love, which is from God, finds pleasure in giving. When God in Deuteronomy 15:7
and Leviticus 25:35 says, ‘if there be among you a poor man of one of thy
brethren within any of thy gates in the land which the Lord thy God giveth
thee, thou shalt not harden thine heart, nor shut thine hand from the poor
brother. And if thy brother be waxen poor, and fallen in decay with thee; thou
shalt relieve him: yea though he be a stranger, or a sourjouner, that he may
live with thee,’ we will say Lord it is a pleasure to give therefore thank you
for the opportunity and we will give. Alms giving will cease to be a duty when
we love our fellowmen as much as we love ourselves. We will also enjoy obeying
the ordinances of the Lord concerning helping the poor because of our love for
the Lord and his people.
Our measure of love to others must be the measure by which we desire to
be loved. The value we place on ourselves must be the very value we place on
others. If we desire to have enough food for our health and wellbeing, then
because of the love of God and our love for our fellowmen we must seek to so
feed our hungry fellows. Doctor Luke says that in the early church no one was
in need because of love. Those who possessed surplus sold what they had so that
those who lacked would meet their needs from the proceeds of those sales. It is
said one man, Barnabas by name, actually sold his farm. Imagine selling your
ranch so that some poor Dick somewhere, whose ancestor never ever owned even a
broom, would own also a garden from the results of your action. Do you own
three cars? Now imagine selling two so that you may buy bicycles for some other
people. Worse still, imagine yourself selling all the three and start riding
bicycles with several others for whom you bought bicycles also. Dear reader,
love has the capacity to take you to such extremes.
I know very well that the church has done wonderful charitable deeds
which the world cannot deny but my reason for writing this book is not to heap
praise but to encourage or rebuke where necessary hence the absence of any
trumpet blowing. One movement was once ridiculed and nicknamed The Starvation
Army because of the good and sound Biblical Godly deeds that the movement
outstandingly performed among the hungry. Many people today are still alive
because of such Starvation Armies who gallantly fought and defeated hunger and
starvation in the noble name of the Lord. May the Lord bless these gallant
soldiers of The New Testament abundantly.
As for those movements who believed alms deeds were not spiritual my
word to them is that they must revise their positions. They must read and
re-read their Bibles and take heed of the Lord’s commands. Alms deeds very much
revolve around God in as much the same way worship does. It is the love of God,
which leads us into alms giving. Those who love God seek to please him. Now if
we seek to please God we will seek to know what he loves so that we will give
it to him. I will now tell you a secret about what God loves very much. God
loves man; he loves man so much that he made him after the image and likeness
of God. God cannot stomach a starving human being and that is why food has
never run out in the world. Of course, there are times we read of famines but
if you analyse the world situation you will discover that the world, at that
very moment will be having enough to feed everyone including animals, the only
problem is that others will be keeping most of the food refusing to share with
their fellowmen. Such is the situation because humans know no love. Even during
the days of Joseph, when there was a drought throughout the world, God saw to
it that Egypt had enough to feed the world but those who died of starvation did
so because of lack of love and sympathy from their fellows.
It is a wonder why we have poor people among us. I always think it is
because others have heaped the wealth of the earth to their own preserve and
are not willing to share with others. If the love of God existed in all of us,
we would share the wealth of the world and still have surplus for the birds and
all other creatures. Because of lack of love we actually exploit others for us
to become rich. The Shona people have a proverb, which says that exploiting
other birds a bird fattens itself and another that says a wise bird uses other
birds’ feathers to build its nest. Such is the human nature that man abuses man
to attain self-enrichment. One man will buy ten houses and if he happens to be
a councillor, he will see to it that an accommodation crisis is created so that
he will rent out his ten houses at exorbitant rates. A farmer will hide food so
that a catastrophe is formed whereby he will sell his merchandise at a hundred
times the proper price. An unscrupulous doctor will prescribe the wrong
medication to a sick person so that the sick person will visit the doctor more
than is necessary paying for each visit. All this happens because we do not
love God and men and as a result we make no effort to please God or to improve
the wellbeing of our fellow human beings.
For those who love the Lord, let me tell you one of the many ways of
pleasing God. God loves to see humans living sound and happy lives. He does not
want men to be poor and that is why Jesus became poor for our sakes so that
through his poverty we would become rich. Now if you see a poor man lend him a
hand and God will be elated. If you come across a hungry man give him food and
God will be in seventh heaven. Give shelter to the homeless and God will never
forget you, he will prepare for both of you an eternal dwelling in his
everlasting kingdom. Jesus said that on his return he shall say to the
righteous, ‘… come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for
you from the foundation of the world: for I was an hungred, and ye gave me
meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:
naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and
ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him saying, Lord, when saw we
thee an hungred, and fed thee? Or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we
thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked and clothed thee? Or when saw we
thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? And the king shall answer unto
them, Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least
of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.’ Matthew 25:34-40. Do you now
see the secret? If you give the needy God will say you are giving him because
God loves people so much that he is concerned with their welfare.
Proverbs 19 verse 17 says, ‘he that has pity upon the poor lends to the
Lord; and that which he gave will he pay him again.’ So, alms giving is lending
to the Lord and is that not spiritual. I for that reason exhort you brethren to
give alms, never cease but give out of love.
If you love God, you will find it easy to give those whom God loves.
God does not love saints alone but also sinners hence we must not be
discriminatory when giving alms. Religion, race or tribe must never be used to
determine whom we give. Alms must be given to all in need notwithstanding their
religious, racial or tribal background. God loves all, so we must also give to
all freely.
We do not give so that we may reap a hundredfold return but we give
because we love God and our fellow human beings. If returns do come that is
fine but our main goal in giving must solely be to share the love of God. The
greatest thing we can give is not material but is love itself. As a result, all
material things we may give must be products of that love. Never ever give as a
duty but always give out of love. Love and alms giving are inseparable. Let
love reign when you give out what you have. Never hesitate to share what you
have with those who do not have. God gave you so you must also be ready to
give.
