The image of God within us inspires us to be generous.
“I want to give while I’m living, so I can see the good being done,” a retired schoolteacher once said. An active leader in her church, she had finalized plans for a large financial gift. I was an inexperienced pastor who learned a new lesson about generosity that day.
DNA and the Image of God
Generosity is deep within in our DNA. In fact, Creation itself manifests generosity. Biologist Joshua Plotkin, of the University of Pennsylvania, writes that, “It’s not just in humans. Social insects behave this way, and even bacteria and viruses share gene products and behave in ways that can’t be described as anything but generous.”