Good Morning Friends,
Some who preach the prosperity Gospel promote the wrong kind of charity. It is too much about self-interest and what is in it for the giver instead of love of God and others. Oh, no doubt, God can use them all but when someone loves what they are giving to it changes the dynamic. For then it is not a market transaction. There is something much more valuable exchanged. The object is to give to God by loving and seeing in others we help something we desire to emulate. The thing to measure is love. And that is a very hard thing to measure. So, Why Do You Give?
Scripture: When the Lord your God thrusts them out before you, do not say to yourself, “It is because of my righteousness that the Lord has brought me in to occupy this land”; it is rather because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is dispossessing them before you. It is not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart that you are going in to occupy their land; but because of the wickedness of these nations the Lord your God is dispossessing them before you, in order to fulfill the promise that the Lord made on oath to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. Know, then, that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land to occupy because of your righteousness; for you are a stubborn people. Remember and do not forget how you provoked the Lord your God to wrath in the wilderness; you have been rebellious against the Lord from the day you came out of the land of Egypt until you came to this place. Even at Horeb you provoked the Lord to wrath, and the Lord was so angry with you that he was ready to destroy you. When I went up the mountain to receive the stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant that the Lord made with you, I remained on the mountain forty days and forty nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water. And the Lord gave me the two stone tablets written with the finger of God; on them were all the words that the Lord had spoken to you at the mountain out of the fire on the day of the assembly.
Deuteronomy 9:4b-10 (NRSV)
Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. “Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.”
Luke 6:36-38 (NRSV)
Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in my house, and thus put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts; see if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you an overflowing blessing.
Malachi 3:10 (NRSV)
Message: The reality is that if we believed Malachi we would be giving a lot more than we do. The problem is that the most sensitive awareness in the whole body is the connection that runs between the heart and our personal bank accounts. And the reality about this typically touches our greed and guilt but that sometimes love activates the benefits of giving with an attitude that makes all the difference in the world. What matters is our love. For if we really love God, we will know that God owns it all and that God gives us money to test and see what we really believe in and in what we truly love. And even though we can read Bible example after example of God rewarding those who give, we are often afraid to give because of what we are losing. Too few tithe as Malichi sets as the standard of giving. Our head learns through the Bible lessons that God rewards those who give, but if our heart is not there it just does not take. The message found in Luke weaves in the concept of mercy and forgiveness as a precursor to giving. But, get out of your head that it is just the amount of the gift that is the most important thing. Oh, it is relevant but what I have found is that the frequency and the attitude in the giving is what ultimately matters most. Friends, giving first and foremost is a decision of the heart. Then we begin to realize that it is a privilege to share in the service to the Lord’s people but also to anyone in need.Tithing becomes a doorway to doing more. Friends, I do not think I need to tell you to give, because that part of your brain that processes giving wants to keep it for itself out of fear. But I can tell you that if you want an abundant life, invest in your heart. We are to love the people we are with and love the places we live and work and worship. So, again giving is a test of sorts as to what we trust and what we love. And if we meet the test we will discover the joy in giving. Friends, there is a privilege in sharing especially when it is in service of what God is doing. It is not so much about reciprocity but in discovering that giving is a blessing in and of itself, so to give is to receive. Friends, God provides left-overs and those who receive those left-overs have left-overs. God gives liberally and so to, if we love in abundance, we will find that there is more than enough of everything our hearts desire.
And So, people give for all sorts of reasons but basically those who do want to accomplish something good. Some come to the realization that loving makes sense, others that it is God’s will, or is good business, or is fun or simply feels right. Some even are motivated to give because they have concluded that they are only returning what they have received or that giving builds family traditions. And all these reasons are probably true but not in the same ways for each person. The only common reason that I know of that people consider very important is that people want to do good. So, if follows that the best reason to give is because one loves. For without love it is very hard to do good.
Pray we always give the glory to God. Pray we realize that trusting in money is pointless. Pray when we give, we give cheerfully. Pray we realize that the opportunity to give presents itself daily. Pray we do not get weary of doing good. Pray we are obedient to the Spirit of giving. Pray we are not only cheerful, but out of a desire to praise God, grow our ability to give in abundance. Pray we understand the power of kindness and the power of an act of generosity. Pray we understand that the sacrificial act of the love of Jesus on the cross can spill over into our lives in acts of giving that glorify God. Pray we give out of love.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 