Seth Udinski, FISM News
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In an act of tremendous generosity, Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin (R.) reportedly donated his entire third-quarter salary for 2022 to the veteran nonprofit group G3 Services on Monday.
The organization provides assistance and counseling to veterans seeking to make the difficult adjustment from the military back to civilian life. A report from The Center Square revealed that this donation, which totaled $43,750, was the largest one-time gift the group has ever received.
The governor, who achieved a shocking upset in last year’s gubernatorial vote in a seemingly blue state, said,
The mission of G3 Community Services is to restore, inspire, and empower the family unit while focusing on mission rather than self. This organization exemplifies the heart and the Spirit of Virginia. I am pleased to donate this quarter’s salary to G3 community services to support their continued efforts to uplift families and localities across the Commonwealth.
He explained part of his reasoning for the donation, saying,
At the end of the day, this is about talent, this is about aspirations and this is about community and this is about vision and this is about commitment. Most importantly, this is about believing: believing in each other, believing that together, we can in fact do more than we could do on our own.
Several sources have indicated that the Republican governor has, since his election, donated his entire gubernatorial salary to various nonprofit organizations.
Author’s Biblical Analysis:
Christians can take great encouragement from Governor Youngkin’s actions. Generosity should be central to the Christian experience, but not merely because we want to partake in good works for the sake of personal recognition, a good feeling in our core, or even to “make a difference” in the lives of others. Those are not bad reasons to give, but the Christian has a far greater reason to be exceedingly generous.
Our reason is this — We serve a generous God who has been extraordinarily generous towards us.
Think for a moment about the overwhelming generosity of God towards sinners who deserve neither generosity nor even life. God, the giver of all good gifts, has created a world with beauty, companionship, and love. The world is marred by sin (our fault, not God’s), yet, even so, we still enjoy countless good gifts.
And this, by the way, is an example of what theologians call God’s common grace. Even on the unrighteous, on those who will reject God and will spend eternity suffering in conscious torment for their rebellion, God is exceedingly generous.
Christians and non-Christians alike enjoy the beneifts of living in God’s good world. Both enjoy relationship, companionship, and the ability to know and be known.
Both also enjoy the beauty of nature, the satisfaction and rewards of hard work (toilsome as it may be in a Postlapsarian world), the taste of delicious food (Why did God have to make food delicious? He didn’t have to. He chose to do it as a gift for us), and the gifts of marital relationship that includes raising and loving children, and engaging in sexual intimacy.
Why did God make sex enjoyable? As He did with delicious food, He choose to do it as a gift for His creatures.
For sinners who deserve nothing but eternal damnation, God has granted countless good gifts in this life. He has been extraordinarily generous. In God’s common grace alone, we have been shown far more generosity than we deserve.
But Christians have even more reason to rejoice, because of God’s special grace.
In addition to all the gifts given in God’s common grace, believers have the greatest gift of all — justification in the sight of God, for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ who was slain on our behalf. Not only have we been given the gift of freedom from sin, but we are given the gift of sonship before God. Once we were enemies of God. Now He calls us not only His friends but His sons and daughters.
For this reason alone, in the example set for us by our generous God, Christians should be exceedingly generous. We will find great joy and great satisfaction in following our Lord’s example. Additionally, we are given the promise of an eternal treasure that will never fade, so long as we are willing to forsake our earthly treasures for the sake of following Christ.
May we remember the blessing promised to those who are willing to be exceedingly generous, as our Lord has modeled for us.
In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’ (Acts 20:35)