LESSON LEARNED: I once heard a story about church giving: A little boy went to church with his Grand-dad & noticed that the old fellow had only put $1.00 in the offering plate as it went by. As the service was over and they were walking out the door, the little boy mentioned that he had seen Grand-dad put the dollar in the plate. Grand-dad smiled as he looked down & said, "Yep. That was a pretty good show for a dollar!" As good as the old man's intentions probably were, he didn't grasp the importance of his offering.
Sure, our giving keeps the church's lights on, pays for heat, a/c, salaries and many other things that we usually don't think about but would miss if they weren't there. But as the Scripture above says, we are blessed by the Lord to be able to give. ALL that we have comes from His loving hand & ALL He requires of us is a mere 10%; He allows us to keep the rest for our living, our families & our own purposes. Every penny is a gift from God. The health that you have to be able to do your job & the job itself is all a gift from the Lord.
He could have required all we have from us, if He wanted to, but in His loving kindness all He asks of us is the small sum of 10% & has even promised to bless us for our faithfulness with His gift. "'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 you will not have room enough for it.'" (Malachi 3:10) [emphasis mine, KW]
My oh my, why do we cheat ourselves out of His blessings? Who are we to argue with His ways? It's all His anyway.
Blessings from Ohio . . . Kim<><
Love this post....I always struggled with the 10
ReplyDelete% because I always knew we could give more....and so we have never thought about 10% but what about 20 or 30 or 50%....Dh and I talk about that every month. We work hard to figure out ways to save so that at the end of the month we can give way more than 10%. What else do I need? Definitely not more STUFF...sop we teach our children to look beyond the 10% and give more when possible.
Yes, it's not always possible when emergencies creep up...but when you think of 3rd world countries...we can do better than 10% most times. And it's a great feeling.
Anyway, it ALL belongs to God...so why not give it away....right? It's truly more blessed to give than receive.
Keep your wisdom coming...as I glean so much from your posts...and you inspire me a lot.
Hugs,
Connie
Oh Kim, I always love reading your blog! I took a long break from blogging as we were remodeling my home.. still not finished but I can breathe Now :) Thank you for I always learn so much from your blogging!
ReplyDeleteps, I will be fixing the picture to change the name of my blog :)
our church is small and some months we don't know if there is going to be enough to pay the rent and utilities. there are no salaries here. we struggle with how to communicate the churches need to the body. there are a few that don't give and probably could, we just pray the Lord would speak to their hearts. If we can't keep the doors open the ministry will cease. as it is anyway. that may bill God's will too. praying about it always. Great words this Wednesday!
ReplyDeleteA great post, Kim.
ReplyDeleteHow good is the God we adore to give to us inspite of ourselves and our meanness to Him.
Blessings
Christine
Hi from your newest follower from the Mod'N'Natural Blog!
ReplyDeleteWe would love to have you join us for the Worship Wednesday Blog Hop :o)
http://naturalmommas.blogspot.com/2011/08/worship-wednesday-8312011.html
~Rebecca~
Hi from a new reader :)
ReplyDeleteI do love to read blogs written by women with faith... :)
Debs