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Each month Stewardship Ministry produces a newsletter article suitable for congregational use. Here is an excerpt from this month’s article on imitating the generosity of our Heavenly Father.
We are the children of God by grace, through faith. In Holy Baptism, God the Father declares of us what He declared of Jesus at His Baptism in the Jordan, “You are my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” God the Father claims us as His own. He takes away all our sins, and in exchange He gives us His righteousness, His purity, His holiness, and HIs Spirit, by which we cry out, “Abba, Father.” We are born again, born from above, born of water and the Spirit, to a new life in Christ as His children. We are sons of God in Christ, through Baptism. And since we are sons, we are heirs; heirs who share in the glory of the Son of God. The inheritance is ours because of the Father’s grace and mercy, because of His generosity in sending His Son in time to save us for all eternity.
And this is why we give generously of our income to the work of the church. Through the working of the Holy Spirit, we are enabled to lead holy lives. We are strengthened to emulate the generosity of our heavenly Father by being generous ourselves. We give to the work of the church because we have witnessed the generous giving of our Father in heaven. More than that, we are recipients of it. It is because we have received God our Father’s gifts that we desire to give ourselves.