LEADERS ARE PROMOTERSChristian leaders have come to understand from the Bible that calling
people to invest in God’s work is not taking from them – but rather giving
to them. The Bible promotes a lifestyle of giving because we serve and
follow a giving God! We give to others because God first gave to us. When
people become Kingdom investors, they are storing up eternal dividends.
They are investing where God is investing. To call people to give is one
of the greatest favors you can do for them. No one will ever stand before
God in judgment and lament the fact that they gave too much! Their only
eternal regret will be that they did not give more to the cause of Christ! They
will clearly see that the only thing they did of eternal significance was to
invest in God’s Kingdom. All else will be reduced to ashes in the fires of
God’s judgment (I Cor. 3:10-15). By calling people to invest their lives
and resources in a Kingdom cause is to secure their eternal reward. You are
calling them to give away what they can never lose! As the young missionary
martyr, Jim Elliot, said: “He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep in
order to gain what he cannot lose!”
If people become offended or “turned off ” by legitimate appeals to meet
legitimate needs in legitimate ways, it only reveals something about them
rather than something about the leader! Defensiveness about possessions
shows that a person does not have God’s perspective on resources and
riches. It shows that their orientation is toward self, rather than toward
God – and toward others. It also reveals that they have a faulty, earth-
bound, temporal view of possessions. That possessive attitude shows
that their possessions have possessed them. In reality, it reveals their heart –
because Jesus clearly taught: “Where your treasure is, there will your
heart be also” (Matt. 6:21). God calls Christian leaders to help others
have a change of heart about possessions. To help them become investors
of resources for His glory and others’ good – and turn them from being
inverters of resources for selfish living! God wants Christian leaders to
help people move their treasure chests from earth to heaven – by investing in
things that are eternally significant.
In his excellent book, Lead On, John Haggai contrasts these two diverse
and divergent views of resources and riches this way:
To many people, giving means a reduction in the giver’s net worth. Such
people have a scarcity mentality. That is not a proper understanding
of giving because giving is investment. The term investment carries