The Reward For Generosity

It’s that time of year. If it’s not yet where you are, it soon will be. Churches are trying to plan for next year and are soliciting pledges from members about their 2026 giving. And some pastors—not mine, fortunately—will trot out Matthew 19:29 to try to persuade their congregants to give generously:

And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or farms on account of My name, will receive many times as much, and will inherit eternal life.

Matthew 19:29 was what Jesus said in response to Peter’s inquiry in Matthew 19:27: “Behold, we have left everything and followed You; what then will there be for us?” Prosperity preachers will tell you that Jesus is promising his followers earthly wealth in return for their generosity to his church, but this idea is discredited by history. None of Jesus’s apostles got rich. Most died a martyr’s death.

Furthermore, Jesus was generally suspicious of wealth. (So was Paul.[1]) As we saw last week, Jesus told the rich, young ruler to sell everything he owned. Jesus gave his followers similar advice in Luke 12:33-34:

Sell your possessions and give to charity; make yourselves money belts that do not wear out, an inexhaustible treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near nor does a moth destroy. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.[2]

(See also Matthew 6:19-21.) He even said that no one can serve both God and wealth.[3]

So what is our reward for being generous, either to God’s church or to the poor and needy? Paul provides part of the answer in 2 Corinthians 9:10-11:

Now He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness; you will be enriched in everything for all liberality, which through us is producing thanksgiving to God.

Here Paul says the reward is an increase in our “righteousness.” In other words, giving generously will draw us closer to God by lessening our devotion to, and dependence upon, money. It takes us a step closer to serving God rather than wealth.

Another reward, as Paul points out in Galatians 6:6-8, is eternal life:

The one who is taught the word is to share all good things with the one who teaches him. Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a person sows, this he will also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will reap destruction from the flesh, but the one who sows to the Spirit will reap eternal life from the Spirit.

The rewards for our generosity are not material, but spiritual. Planting seeds of generosity helps us to grow spiritually and become better children of God.

So how much should we give? That’s a topic for another day, and one that is very much up to each individual. Just remember, “God loves a cheerful giver.”[4] Giving to God is not something we have to do; it is something we get to do. So let each of us give as we have prospered.[5]

[1]. See, for example, 1 Timothy 6:6-10

[2]. See also Matthew 6:19-21.

[3]. Matthew 6:24, Luke 16:13

[4]. 2 Corinthians 9:7

[5]. See 1 Corinthians 16:2.