How are faith and the willingness to sacrifice connected?

The willingness to sacrifice grows with one’s certainty that one’s faith is true. Whoever has no doubt about God gladly gives property, time and strength for His sake.

No one makes sacrifices for a cause they only half believe in. A person who is unsure holds on to what they have. But for someone who is certain that God is living and that His message is true, giving becomes easy. So the question of sacrifice is, at its heart, a question of certainty.

This certainty can come in two ways. It can come from above, through revelation, as it did for the prophets. It can also grow from within, as a person experiences God more and more clearly in their own life. Both paths lead to the same place, a faithfulness that no longer asks what it costs.

The prophets show this most clearly. Because they knew God with such certainty, they gave everything they owned for His sake. The first verse above describes the same order. First comes faith that no longer doubts, and from it follows striving with one’s possessions and one’s person.

In everyday life we know this from any deep love. A mother does not count what her child costs her, because she is sure of her love. Faith works the same way. Sacrifice is not a price paid reluctantly but the natural expression of what one knows in one’s heart.

That is why the willingness to sacrifice is also an honest mirror. If giving feels hard, it is worth looking at one’s own certainty and strengthening it. As certainty grows, the joy of giving grows with it.