School of Generosity #4

Day 4 of the course, I wanted to capture what JoAnne Ramos said in her session, which spoke to me deeply. She is an amazing speaker, and God has done an amazing work in her life, and I just want to honour her by this.

She was talking about how Kingdom Culture is created and established, specifically in 3 ways:

• What we believe about: God (Psalm 145:16), Yourself (Proverbs 23:7), Your resources.
• What we speak (Matthew 12:34)
• How we live (Matthew 5:16, 1 John 3:18)

She then interjected with these few nuggets:

• When we are in a state of self-pity, locked into a victim mentality, God doesn’t feel sorry for you – in the sense that he knows who he created you to be, and you being a victim is not who he created you to be [side note: please don’t feel like God doesn’t care if we are down and broken, the point is he knows who are.She said that at home they don’t allow any victim mentality, but rather create an environment where people are encouraged and built up.
• When sharing about resources, she said how her son had one day asked her why they didn’t have that much furniture (e.g. not enough sofa’s for everyone to sit on), and she said they didn’t chose to buy them. Her son had thought that they were too poor, whilst JoAnne said it was more how they chose to spend their money – on earthly things with limited lives and value, versus eternal things.I loved that point – it is all a matter of perspective, and choosing how to invest (and also sacrifice for the short term)

Genesis 8:22 (NIV): “As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.”

Joanne pointed out that of those 4 things (seedtime & harvest, cold & heat, summer & winter, day & night), only 1 part was in our ability to influence – seedtime & harvest.

The forest is in the seed:

• Seed – we have itCorinthians 9:8-10God gives seed, which you can then give away
• Season – the right timeEcclesiastes 3:1
• Soil – where to sowJohn 12:8We sow because we live a God life motivated by his compassion.

At the end of the talk at a Q&A she had a question about giving, and specifically if spouses disagree about how much to give or what to give. She responded by saying if you disagree on something, pray pray pray, and the Lord will reveal to both of you what he wants. However if one partner’s heart isn’t in a specific area (maybe they aren’t saved) then give of something else - it doesn’t need to be just finances, it can be of your time, your skills, your hospitality…