I gotta have my orange juice.

God forbids stealing in the eighth commandment, and in the tenth commandment he forbids even coveting. All of this connects to how we see the money and possessions that God has given to us. If we clutch them tightly as ours, or if we are discontent with what we are given, then our hearts are walking along the same road that is home to stealing.

One of the graces God has given to train our hearts in gratitude and away from selfishness is giving, whether it is almsgiving, tithing, voluntary offerings, etc. We love to give out of gratitude to our Savior, but at the same time God uses our giving to provoke still greater affections for him, releasing the hold that possessions have on our affections! Randy Alcorn describes how God uses giving to do this in his book The Treasure Principle:

Another benefit of giving is freedom. It’s a matter of basic physics. The greater the mass, the greater the hold that mass exerts. The more things we own–the greater their total mass the more they grip us, setting us in orbit around them. Finally, like a black hole, they suck us in.

Giving changes all that. It breaks us out of orbit around our possessions. We escape their gravity, entering a new orbit around our treasures in heaven. . . .

Jesus said, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21). . . . Suppose you buy shares of General Motors. What happens? You suddenly develop interest in GM. . . . Suppose you’re giving to help African children with AIDS. When you see an article on the subject, you’re hooked. . . . As surely as the compass needle follows north, your heart will follow your treasure. Money leads; hearts follow.

Crossposted to Reflections on Upchurch