A Cheerful Giver

In Paul’s 2^nd epistle to the Corinthians he encouraged them to give of their means to help the poor Saints in Jerusalem.  He wrote, “Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver” (2 Corinthians 9:7).  Paul was concerned not just with some quantity that needed to be collected, but he sought to help them give out of love in their hearts.  In the work of the Lord, how we give—the feelings and intentions of our heart—is even more important than what we give.  Mormon highlighted this to the followers of Christ in his day, saying, “For behold, if a man being evil giveth a gift, he doeth it grudgingly; wherefore it is counted unto him the same as if he had retained the gift; wherefore he is counted evil before God” (Moroni 7:8).  Both Paul and Mormon used the word grudgingly as a description of how not to give.  Our efforts to help and serve others should be given from our heart with gladness and not out of constraint or necessity or with resentment in our hearts. 

Once our hearts are in the right place, though, we are taught also to give generously.  Paul told the Corinthians to give “as a matter of bounty, and not as of covetousness” (2 Corinthians 9:7).  In other words our hearts should be such that we want to give bountifully, as much as we can, and not give with covetousness for the things with which we are parting.  I love the way the Savior said it as recorded in Luke: “Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom” (Luke 6:38).  We are to give “running over” and not stingily measured out, to “do what we can” as Elder Holland put it and to “impart of [our] substance to the poor, every man according to that which he hath” as King Benjamin taught (Mosiah 4:26).  It is indeed instructive for us that the effect of a personal visit by the Savior in the New World and the Old World resulted in the same economic organization amongst the faithful Saints who remained after His departure: they shared all that they had together.  Soon after the Savior’s ascension, Luke gave us this description of the Saints: “And all that believed were together, and had all things common; And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need” (Acts 2:44-45).  After the Savior’s visit among the Nephites, Mormon wrote that “they had all things common among them; therefore there were not rich and poor, bond and free, but they were all made free, and partakers of the heavenly gift” (4 Nephi 1:3).  The effect of being with the Savior was to lead the people to desire to give all that they had to help others just as He gave everything to atone for us.  Ultimately this is the effect the gospel had on us.   

We might quickly say that in our day such a requirement of consecrating everything to the Lord has been done away and breathe a sigh of relief, but again what matters first is our heart and willingness to give.  Elder McConkie taught in general conference, “We are not always called upon to live the whole law of consecration and give all of our time, talents, and means to the building up of the Lord’s earthly kingdom. Few of us are called upon to sacrifice much of what we possess, and at the moment there is only an occasional martyr in the cause of revealed religion.  But what the scriptural account means is that to gain celestial salvation we must be able to live these laws to the full if we are called upon to do so. Implicit in this is the reality that we must in fact live them to the extent we are called upon so to do.”  In other words, even if we aren’t required now to consecrate all our properties to the kingdom of God, our acceptance of the law of consecration means that we are willing to do so; that if such a thing were asked of us we would give all.  And if such an offering were to be acceptable to the Lord, it would have to be, as Paul taught the Corinthians, with a cheerful heart and not grudgingly.  To get our hearts to that level of love and commitment and selflessness, to be willingly to glad sacrifice all, is what we should all be striving for as disciples of Jesus Christ.