Rooted Generosity

A couple months ago, it was announced that billionaire Warren Buffet is planning to give a sizeable donation to a charitable organization founded by his friend and bridge partner Bill Gates. The size of the donation will eventually reach... $37 billlion (US currency). That is a chunk o' change by anyone's standards (even by most nation's GNP's). For more info, click here...



Buffet's donation doubles the current value of the Gates Foundation, already one of the world's richest charities and will help support work with HIV, malaria and tuberculosis in the Third World, and with education and library technology in the United States. To say the donation is "generous" would be an understatement.

At 75 years of age, and in excellent health, at the end of the donation, Buffet will still have approximately $7 billion in assets. Buffet is the second most financially wealthy individual in the US, surpassed only by Gates himself who is worth an estimated $50 billion. Buffet's donation is regarded as the largest single-person philanthropic donation ever given in American history, dwarfing such names as Rockefeller and Carnegie to name only two.

While such generosity is beyond the reach of nearly all other Americans, its dollar volume should not be the most impressive quality of such generosity. It should be the "root" of such generosity that impresses.

In his second recorded letter to the Christians in Corinth, the apostle Paul writes, "You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God" (2 Cor. 9:11). In that statement, Paul indicates the often missed truth that wealth essentially comes from God. Now, it may be argued that wealth through dishonest gain is not of the Lord, but in light of intended generosity, it should be noted God supplies so that mankind might be generous.

At what point do humans begin to think wealth is intended to be used for their own selfish interests? Are we born with it? Is it a developed trait? Perhaps since the beginning of time, with the two brothers Cain and Abel, we were determined to miss the true root of generosity wherein one brother's sacrifice was acceptable because it was generous, while the other brother's was unacceptable because it was grudgingly given (Gen. 4:1-8).

No matter your level of prosperity, it is righteous to realize whatever wealth humans do have, supplied by Perfect Design, it is intended to be used for "generosity in all occasions." When we are generous, we are tapping into the very root from which generosity grows. Generosity belongs to God and when we do give, the result should always result in "thanksgiving to God."

In appropriate response... "Thank you, God, for the generosity of those who easily part with their riches for they are realizing the words of Jesus, "It is more blessed to give than to receive" (Acts 20:35).