Leviticus 23:22 “‘When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Leave them for the poor and for the foreigner residing among you. I am the LORD your God.
I was raised in a home where New England values were in play. “Waste not, want not” was our rallying cry, or at least one of them. Don’t waste that. Be careful with that. Keep that for a rainy day.
We had a rainy day fund. Dave Ramsey calls it an Emergency Fund. There was an acknowledgement that there were not guarantees in life. My parents had survived the Great Depression, so they knew what it was to be careful with finances and not take things for granted.
I think many from their generation passed along a message that set the stage for our current “me and mine” mentality among so many. For so many, generosity has left the stage. It isn’t part of people’s actual practice. They might speak the words, but the money doesn’t follow.
One of the big downsides to capitalism is the selfishness it seems to breed. We have acquired, and now we hold on tight to what we have. We might not be hoarders, but what is ours is ours!
For followers of Jesus, we are to have a different way of looking that this world’s goods. Our perspective should be that they are just transitory vapor. Holding tightly to them is not worth the effort. They are not permanent nor of eternal value.
Our text talks about farm life, harvest time in particular. When harvesting grain was done by hand, you naturally missed some. In your haste to get the field harvested, you dropped some grain, or missed some spots. The instruction is to leave it for the poor. It will provide food for them.
I think a modern application of this truth might be this: Don’t pinch every penny of profit for yourself. If you own a business that is making a profit, share the profit with your employees, not a token share, but an actual share. Do without personally in order to bless them.
I think of one family in particular here in the United States. They claim Christ as their Lord, and yet they are billionaires personally. They could raise the wages of their hundreds of thousands of employees significantly without impacting their lives one bit. They could still jet around the world and still pass along the profits to their workers.
What are ways that you can pass along the abundance you have received to those who are less fortunate? Are you trying to pinch every penny for yourself, or pinch every penny so that you have more to give? And are you actually giving what was pinched?
The Arnold Journey 