The Secret of Increase
Matthew 5:42 Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away.
Give to him, grant to him, bestow upon him who desires something of you, and do not turn away from him who wants a loan from you.
Oh, how it goes against human nature to give something we own to someone else, even when we have more than enough for ourselves. Yet it can be easily proven from the Bible that giving and being generous-hearted is the basis for prospering.
He who scatters increases
Proverbs 11:24 There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth; and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty.
Proverbs 11:25 The liberal soul shall be made fat: and he that watereth shall be watered also himself.
There is one who scatters what he has to help others, and yet he increases. How can that be? And there is one who keeps to himself more that he needs to, but it leads to poverty.
Wow! If this is true, then we’ve had it backwards the whole time. But this is indeed the way it works. And it always has been. We give to help others and we increase. We hoard it up to ourselves and we grow poorer.
What we give finds its way back
Ecclesiastes 11:1 Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days.
Whatever we give to help others is going to find its way back to us. At least that’s what the Bible tells us. Could this possibly be the truth? Of course, it’s true. It’s the Bible. It’s the word of God.
The one who gives will not lack
Proverbs 28:27 He that giveth unto the poor shall not lack: but he that hideth his eyes shall have many a curse.
He who gives to the poor shall not suffer lack in his life. That’s a Bible promise. But he who hides his eyes from the needy shall suffer many a curse, or many a cursing.
With the same measure
Jesus made another statement concerning giving in Luke 6:38.
Luke 6:38 Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.
Whatever measure we measure with when we give, that same measure of return will be measured back to us. This is another Bible promise.
Inner covetousness
What is Jesus dealing with when He says, give to him that asks of you? Why does the Bible give us so many scriptures about how giving will cause us to be blessed? Why is God Himself telling us to be givers, to bless and help needy people?
He is dealing with the desire that’s in a person to keep everything for themselves. That’s a natural thing that exists within human beings. What better way to deal with that than to tell people to give to others who are in need, and letting them know that they will be rewarded for it?
How is it possible for a person overcome the natural human desire to cling to possessions? By knowing that if we let go of some of it to help others, the result will be greater blessing for us in return.
A different mindset
Is Jesus appealing to our greed to motivate us to give? No, He isn’t. He is trying to correct our mindset toward giving and helping the needy. He is trying to give us the correct understanding about how to prosper, how things actually work in reality, as opposed to how we think they work.
The world teaches us that to prosper and become well off, so to speak, we must work a lot, earn all we can possibly earn, and then store it all up and spend as little of it as possible. Then over time, wealth will accumulate.
And that does work, based on natural law. Many have proven it to be true. People do accumulate wealth and possessions that way.
On the other hand, in the kingdom of God we learn and understand that increase comes by taking what we have and sowing it into helping others who are in need. We learn that there is blessing in tithing. And we learn that we should give in addition to that, to help the poor and needy. Our financial strategy is not to hoard up what we have gained, but to scatter it to the needy, to cast our bread upon the water, to sow for a future harvest of blessing.
Well, that just doesn’t make sense from a natural and logical perspective. How are we going to prosper and increase if we’re giving our stuff away? The answer is that we are trusting God to make it happen. It’s his promise. It’s up to Him to fulfill it. We don’t need to know how. We just need to believe His word and act upon it. That's our part. Making us increase is His part.
And that’s the mindset that Jesus is telling us to cultivate and develop in our lives. It’s a mindset of trust in God. Yes, it’s the opposite of what the world would tell us to do, but we’re endeavoring to think according to the kingdom of God, and not according to the world.
It’s interesting that every time we look at these scripture verses, most people suddenly get into a giving mood. We should look at them often and regularly. Faith comes by hearing the word of God. These verses motivate us to do what doesn’t come by nature, which is to give some of what we have to help someone else.
The secret of increase
What is the secret to increase? It's not really a secret. The Bible expresses it very clearly in numerous places. In the kingdom of God, giving produces increase in our life.