“Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over shall they give to your bosom. For with the same measure you mete, it shall be measured again to you.” Luke 6:38. This verse of Scripture explains in the simplest terms the essential difference between the kingdom of Christ and the kingdom of Satan.
“The spirit of liberality is the spirit of heaven. This spirit finds its highest manifestation in Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. . . . The cross of Calvary should appeal to the benevolence of every follower of the Saviour. The principle there illustrated is to give, give. . . .
“On the other hand, the spirit of selfishness is the spirit of Satan. The principle illustrated in the lives of worldlings is to get, get. Thus they hope to secure happiness and ease, but the fruit of their sowing is misery and death.” The Acts of the Apostles, 339.
The principle of Christ applies in every situation, and at Steps to Life Ministries, we have tried to implement this principle. That is why the majority of our appeals for funds are for monies to help us assist God’s work in many places throughout the earth.
Since we are a ministry and not a commercial business, even the money that we receive for our local use is directed toward finishing the Lord’s work in many places.
For example, one of our local expenses is the operation of a van. We are very thankful for this van, given to us by a friend of the ministry. We have too much mail to transport from and to the post office by automobile. We cannot pay for the expenses of the van from money allocated for various mission projects, but it is a vital expense. Without it we could not effectively receive or send materials and communications to others around the world.
Another of our local expenses is the production of radio and television programs that are aired around the world. This costs many thousands of dollars per year, and it is a miracle of God that the Holy Spirit has impressed people to contribute to the support of this outreach every year since 1987.
Something that has astonished me for a long time is that God’s work around the world is substantially supported by what could be called the “widows and the orphans.” You know the story of the widow’s mite in Luke 21. Jesus said that she had cast in more than all the rich! Ellen White describes two ways in which this statement is true in The Desire of Ages, 616. There is yet another way in which this story is true. This widow was a type of the widows and orphans of all ages—the poorer people of this world—who have the cause of God at heart and who sacrifice to make His work successful. They are the source of a large amount of the support for all of God’s work. There will be many surprises when we get to heaven, and not the least of them will be from whom the money came to support God’s work in this world.
The Lord appreciates the sacrifices of the wealthy, and we do, too, but He has a special place in His heart for those who, in spite of their poverty, practice severe self-denial to support the work. We want every person who is practicing self-denial for the success of God’s work to know that we pray for his or her financial and spiritual prosperity.
The people who have donated money to help us keep our van going back and forth to the post office and to maintain and upgrade our radio and television equipment will, in heaven, see where the Three Angels’ Messages went as a result of their gifts. They will be greeted by people that they never knew in this world who will say, “It was you who invited me here.”