The thing I have discovered in my years of writing and thinking about stewardship is that the reasons that people give are pretty simple, but the reasons that people withhold their giving are much more complicated.

If you talk to someone who tithes they will say something like, "God has done so much for me,"  or, "It is all about gratitude," or It all belongs to God anyway."  They are all variations on a theme that puts God at the center of their lives.

But if you talk to people who are not giving what they believe they ought to, the answers become more varied and scattered.  Some will tell you it is because of the way finances are handled in their congregation.  Some will tell you it is because their own expenses prohibit it.  I remember one family who was doing major renovations to their home and told me that they were their own favorite charity at that time.  Some will talk about some income goal they were working toward, and if they reached that benchmark then they would be able to give more.

Maybe those responses are just rationalizations.  Maybe there are lesser reasons  But tying all of these reasons together is the reality that God is not at the center of their lives and their decision making.

Jesus said, "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."  So does the giving precede the trust?  I think maybe.

Don't you know someone in your life who trusts God with all his or her heart?  Haven't you longed to be that person and to have that kind of faith?

Then Jesus is telling you that God will become the center and the focus of your life when you treasure lies there.

Perhaps that is precisely why those who do give generously have only one answer or variations on the theme of why they give.  Putting their treasure with God has turned their hearts there.

Luther said that the toughest conversion is the pocketbook.  But Jesus implies that without that conversion our hearts lie elsewhere and it becomes impossible to love the Lord with all our hearts and minds and strength.

Lord,
Open my heart enough so that I might give and then the rest of my heart will follow.
Amen