What "Ready" Actually Means

What “Ready” Actually Means

Jim: Hi friends, Jim Shepard here from Janerys with my cohort, my colleague, my co-conspirator, the one, the only, the amazing, the unique, the exclusively himself, Frank Bealer.

Frank: The exclusively himself, true of everyone.

Jim: You're We're all We're all exclusively themselves.

Frank: One of a kind. It's always funny when somebody says one of a kind cuz God's like, "Well, that was one of a kind. I've never made one like that before."

Jim: That's exactly right. You're one of a kind.

Frank: Some of us are more one of a kind than others, right?

Jim: Yeah, that's exactly right. Hey, we're here for the summer sessions, which are shorter episodes than usual designed to get you acclimated over the summer toward what you'll be facing starting right after Labor Day and through the first of the the last of this year and into the first of next year. And we've covered such good ground, you know, getting the pastor's heart ready and, you know, where does it really resist? Why does it feel harder than it needs to be?

What does it look like to disciple and lean into Gen Z, our last episode? And now we're coming to one that Well, I don't know if y'all are ready for this. You see what I did there? Ready?

But we're going to talk about what it means to be ready? What does ready actually mean?

Frank: And I thought for this episode, I could do something really simple. Jim, are you ready for this? Are you ready for this? I'm just going to charge you up and let you go.

Okay. And you're talking about your question that everybody loves to make.

Jim: That's right. That's exactly right.

Frank: So, we've talked about this at length in a couple different ways. Yes, we have, but we want to make sure we put kind of a bow on these summer sessions by coming back to it. We'll allude to the show notes where you can read more about it, dig more deeper or dig deeper into this if you'd like to. but give an overview on where this concern kind of creeps up in the narrative that we've been sharing of the things to practically do this summer.

Where does this show up? This idea of readiness and where does it make you feel the weight that it does?

Jim: Yeah. So, the place it shows up is going to be in 2 Corinthians 9:7 where we find that passage for God loves a cheerful giver.

Frank: Yeah.

Jim: And what we do is we take that word cheerful and even well-intentioned, well-educated pastors fail to do the word work of really going underneath and seeing what that really means, but rather accept what's kind of the commonly accepted definition of oh yeah, happy givers.

Frank: Yeah.

Jim: Joyfilled givers. And there is that element, right? But in extracting words from ancient languages, many times, especially in the Greek, I think people know this. Many times there's not one word in the English language that captures the full intent.

Because in, you know, my English teachers taught me early on, hey, in Websters, that was our dictionary growing up. In Webster, that one that says number one, that's the primary definition and number two is the secondary definition. But one is the one that we use most of the time.

Frank: Yeah. Right.

Jim: In this particular case in the Greek, there are two co-equal words that go to form this word hilarious, right? Two co-equal words. And the words are both cheerful or joyfilled and ready. And ready to be ready to give.

And that's the part that we miss so often when we're talking about 2 Corinthians 9:7. And Paul actually gives us a really, really strong hint that ready is a part of it because in 2 Corinthians 9: 1-6, he uses the word ready, depending on your translation, either five or six times.

Frank: Yes.

Jim: Five or six times. So he's telling you ready is a part of it. And the equally perplexing part of it, Frank, is that we want to lean on the front part of that. Oh, not under compulsion.

We don't want anybody here today to give up. If you're a guest today, we don't want you to feel under compulsion. But it also says not reluctantly. I think there's a really good chance that we got more reluctant givers than we do people who are giving under compulsion.

Frank: Yeah.

Jim: I don't personally know anybody who's struggling with giving under compulsion. feeling like they have to, right? Because the church has a giving moment on Sunday morning, right? I don't hear that.

Frank: Maybe you've heard it, but I haven't. That's exactly right.

Jim: But I've heard a lot of people that when the money leaves their hand, it's Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Giving until it hurts is not a biblical concept. Okay. Giving till it brings joy is the biblical concept. I would admit that giving till it hurts might be a phase that you have to work through between giving reluctantly and being a cheerful, a ready, joyfilled giver, but you can't stay there.

Frank: That's so good because that's not what the Bible teaches, right?

Jim: It's not what the Bible teaches. And then importantly, and I don't know that Paul had this in mind, probably didn't. But if you go back to Exodus 34 and35 where we found out, find one of the great outpourings of offerings in the Bible.

Frank: Yeah.

Jim: Before we get to the part where Moses had to say in the southern version of this, y'all quit now. Y'all have to stop bringing all this money.

Frank: Yeah.

Jim: You got to you can't because our people don't even. I mean the artisans got off their scaffolding and came to Moses and said, "You got to tell them to stop. I don't even know where to put all this stuff." Right? But the verses, the chapter before that to were of a willing mind, were of a willing heart.

And those words show up again and again and again. And that's what we're talking about being ready. A willing mind, a willing heart, and a willing spirit. And so when we say ready, that's part of this idea of being a cheerful giver.

Not reluctantly. It's not that I have to give, I get to give. saying what King David said in 1st Chronicles 29:14.

Frank: Who am I? Yeah.

Jim: And who are we that we are able to even give to you, Lord? For everything that we have came from your hand and from your hand the thing we gave back. That's what it was. You gave it to us and we were able to.

Who are and who are we? The humble posture of David saying, "I'm ready. I'm joyfilled. I want to be a part of this.

Thank you, Lord." Right? So, I think if we can learn and we've and I've spoken on this, there's a blog post. We can probably link to that in the show notes, you know.

Can we please stop saying under compulsion when talking about giving cheerfully? It is not a problem. Not the point. You don't have to protect people from their wallets.

They know how to do that better than you do.

Frank: Yeah.

Jim: The point of your teaching, pastor, is to equip them to become ready, joyfilled givers, not reluctantly or under compulsion because God loves a cheerful giver.

Frank: Yes.

Jim: Somebody who has said, "Yes, Lord. Yes, Lord."

Frank: Yeah. Yes, Lord. Right. So, in giving moments, that gets referenced from time to time and especially at random.

Sometimes they'll say it and don't even reference the scripture. It's just kind of like what is what we even talk about right now? It's like hey we're not saying for those of you today you're not under compulsion. You're like what is that rhythm of like it's just like filler language for us sometimes.

Where else is this idea creeping up in our language, our posture, the way we're communicating outside of that specific statement on a Sunday morning? Where do you think that kind of posture is showing up in the way we're teaching and guiding our people? I'm putting you on the spot. I didn't plan for this question.

Jim: Well, I actually think a lot of this goes back to our first session, Frank. Okay. until and unless the pastor has resolved it in his or her heart that this is an essential topic for teaching and that I have peace with my own journey in that it's going to be really hard to get that across to your people.

Frank: Well, yeah.

Jim: And you're not going to lean into the idea of ready. You're going to be more apologizing for, you know, hey, I hope you don't feel like you're under compulsion this morning.

Frank: Yeah.

Jim: You know, well, I didn't until you just I wasn't actually even thinking about that, pastor, until you mentioned it. So, it's the apologetic tone, the reluctant tone, the transactional tone. All of these are what I would call diversionary tactics that lead you away from getting to the heart of the issue, which is I want to be a ready, eager, willing, joyfilled giver. I want to be like those people that Moses said, "Y'all stop, right?

We got enough to build the tabernacle and then some." That's because what they already had was more than enough. That's the kind of outpouring of giving that happened then.

Frank: Incredible.

Jim: And I think it's it speaks even if Paul wasn't thinking about them when he wrote those words, it speaks to this mindset that Paul is referencing in 2 Corinthians 9:7 being of one mind, of one spirit, of the right, as their hearts led them, as their minds were willing. All of this is this idea of being ready.

Frank: Love it. And it's so easy for us if we as a leader don't have peace with the topic, we'll engage in some other conversations that are not as helpful. Yeah. Yeah.

That's great. It shows up in the way we hedge and use qualifying language and we're trying to skirt around instead of communicating directly and clearly what God would have them do and wrestle with.

Jim: Yeah. I think the other thing too, Frank, and this is going to be a little bit of a stretch, but I think it works here because, you know, this is one of my favorite topics to talk about, is is to embrace the idea that this that you're giving your relationship with money is spiritual warfare. And you've probably never thought of it that way. The whole idea when Jesus said, you know, you can't worship both God and Mammon.

You pick an altar, you know, totally.

Frank: There's the old Bob Dylan song, my generation, Bob Dylan, you got to serve somebody.

Jim: Everybody's going to serve somebody. You know what you say? It might be the devil and it might be the Lord, but everybody's going to serve somebody. You're going to worship in one of those two altars.

And what Jesus is saying is that's not just a friend in your pocket. I want you to be ready to do battle with it when it tries to tempt you to do something other than worship God with it.

Frank: Yeah.

Jim: Right. and so be ready when it becomes like a spiritual issue and you've got to do battle with it because to get ready, eager, willing, joyfilled, giver, cheerful, you're probably going to have to battle with this as a spiritual thing, right? And until you do that, you're probably not going to get your victory.

Frank: That's so good. Yeah. Lots to think about as we're wrapping up the summer session. I will say this.

Pastor, some of you may be thinking, "Well, that's not how I communicate. I understand this completely." Jim, who else are you empowering to talk about generosity in your congregation, in your church, among your staff, because they may be navigating this? So, this isn't something just for you, but reflecting on those that are communicating about money in this house.

How are they communicating? You need to reflect on that. So, hopefully we give you some good stuff to wrestle with this summer, and you'll find this really helpful. And we'll be back again real soon with a regular episode of the Next Sunday Podcast.