“Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also
reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each of
you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or
under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to bless you
abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you
will abound in every good work.”
2 Corinthians 9:6-8 NIV
Many people think the time, energy, or money that is
given. To volunteer in doing ministry, Children ministry, ushering ministry, r
even to the church is money thrown away. But God tells us that if we give to
such places with the proper heart, it is like a seed that is planted.
That seed will eventually grow into a large plant. And
the money we have given will cause something to bloom in God’s kingdom.
There is the story of a man who was dying and he
decided he was going to take all his money with him. He instructed his wife to
take out all the money from the bank and put it in a sack and hang that sack on
one of the rafters in the attic.
He told her that when he died, he would grab the sack
as his spirit passed there on the way to heaven. The wife did as he requested.
The day came and he died. The wife raced to the attic
and found all the money still there. She thought to herself, “I knew I should
have hung it in the basement.”
“Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there
may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if
I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing
that there will not be room enough to store it. I will prevent pests from
devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not drop their fruit
before it is ripe,” says the Lord Almighty. “Then all the nations will call you
blessed, for yours will be a delightful land,” says the Lord Almighty.”
Malachi 3:10-12 NIV
God commands us to give from what we have. We don’t
want to, so He then tells us that not only do we have to give, we must do it
cheerfully. We still balk at giving our money, so He goes a step further. He
says if we don’t give, we are robbing Him, but if we do give, He will give us
so much back we won’t know where to put it all.
God said for us to test Him in this and He will show
us. Now, to let us know just how important that is, let me remind you that this
is the only place in the Bible that says we are allowed to test God.
What is God doing here ? God is trying His best to get
us to part with something we hold very dear to us, so that that we can learn
how to fully trust Him with more important things – like our very souls. The
question is; will we listen?
Another question we must ask is …
1. WHAT SHOULD WE GIVE?
One day, a little boy and his sister were playing
‘Noah’s Ark’ in the small wading pool in their backyard. They were using an old
shoebox for the ark, and the water in the wading pool was the flood.
After the flood was over, they were going to make an
offering, but they couldn’t decide on what to offer. The boy wanted to offer
the sister’s doll, and the girl would have no part of it. She suggested the
boy’s G.I. Joe, and the boy said ‘NO!’ to that, too.
So, the little girl ran to the house and in a few
minutes came back with an old stuffed sheep. One ear had long been ripped off,
the wool was filthy dirty, and one of the eyes was missing. But she said, “Here
let’s sacrifice this. We don’t want it anymore anyway.”
The little boy agreed. The broken and forgotten toy
was given to God.
That is exactly how most of us give to God. We are
told to give Him our first fruits, yet we take the first portion for ourselves
and give Him what left. We give Him the stuff we don’t want anymore.
· We give to Him out of our convenience, rather than
from our love.
· We give Him the scraps of our lives, or what is left
over after we have enjoyed the feast.
God is not a God of forgotten scraps or miserable
leftovers. God is a holy God and He deserves the first of all we have.
To answer the question of “What Should We Give?” the
answer would be to give the first portion of what we have - and the best of
what we have.
Always remember that …
2. OUR SECOND BEST DOES NOT HONOR GOD
How would you feel if the president of the company you
work for called you into his office and said he had chosen you to be his
personal assistant – at a very high salary? Wouldn’t that make you feel great?
But how would that change your daily work effort? To
most people, if something like that happened, it would make us work that much
harder so we would please him. If he had chosen us to be his personal
assistant, we would do everything in our power to do the best we could. We
would strive to honor Him with our high level of productivity, wouldn’t we?
Let me remind you that you have been called, but by
someone higher and more important than any executive. You have been selected by
God to be His personal ambassador to this earth.
“We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though
God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be
reconciled to God.”
2 Corinthians 5:20 NIV
You have been given the duty of being God’s personal
assistant in this journey of Faith , but most of us have ignored the need to
honor Him by doing our best.
As a Christian, it is your explicit duty to be as
obedient to God as you can possibly be. But too many Christians turn a blind
eye to obedience.
There is a big
difference what God wants from us and what the world wants from us. And we seem
to always find ourselves standing in the middle, with our backs on God, looking
in the direction of the world.
In 1 JOHN it says to not love the world or anything in
it.
That includes their opinions and desires. This might
help us to focus properly. Always remember that the world is focused primarily
on comfort. “If it feels good, do it.” “Just roll with the flow.” Everything in
the world is “self-focused.” And that does nothing to show honor to God, as it
has nothing to do with any kind of sacrifice.
Those who offer God their second best do not have an
appropriate concept of God.
If Jesus Christ died for me, then there is no
sacrifice that is too much for me to give for Him.
3. WHY DO WE HESITATE GIVING TO GOD?
We hesitate in giving because we are selfish by
nature. “What’s mine is mine and by the way, I want yours, too!”
Another reason we don’t give, is that we don’t see any
immediate benefit out of it for ourselves. Ah! There comes that old selfish
nature rising up again.
We do not need to see any benefit at all in order to
give to God as He commands. We are creatures of ‘immediate gratification.’ If
we don’t see an instant return on what we give, we quit giving.
The problem is that is all self-focused and has
nothing at all to do with being God-focused.
God has commanded us to give. If we follow God’s
command, we will not lose anything. But we will not profit at all if we don’t
do what He commands.
Another question we must ask is …
4. WHY GIVE TO THE CHURCH?
A church has expenses just like your home does. You
receive your money from an employer. A church receives its money from the
congregation.
Let me ask you a question. If you go into your job and
do the best you can to do what your boss wants, how would you feel if your boss
short-changed you on your paycheck?
Let me turn that around. If a church strives to help
you in every way God wants it to, how do you think God will feel if you
short-change the church?
We are talking about tithing to the church but let me
remind you that God does not want his church to be a house of money, but He
does want you to give to the Temple treasury. Again, the question comes back on
us. Will we give what we are supposed to, or not?
We have all heard preachers asking for money. The
church needs money to operate, but there is a right way and a wrong way to seek
it. I believe it is a violation of God’s word to tell people that God will give
them back $1,000 for every $100 dollars they give. That would be kind of like a
heavenly slot machine.
You should never give, focused on what you are going
to get back. That is a selfish act and God does not reward that kind of giving.
We should give because we want to be obedient to God.
Someone said told am so broke he couldn’t rub two nickels
together.
I will remind you of the woman who put two pennies
into the collection box at the Temple, and Jesus said she would be rewarded
more than others who put large sums of money in that box. I explained that she
did the best she could out of a heart that desired to be obedient.
To answer the question of why we give to the church;
we give for two reasons.
1. Because the church needs funds 2. Because we are told to
God wants us to get past our fear of giving. We view
it as ‘giving up’ something, while God views it as the “outpouring of a
generous and loving heart.’
Close
“Give, and it will be given to you. A good
measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into
your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.””
Luke
6:38 NIV
