Give, Save, then Live
Monday, 17 November 2008
Howdy! If you're new here, you may want to subscribe by email or RSS feed. Thanks for hanging out! Leave a comment...
So money is the one thing that God knows for sure that we may put before Him. It is a given. It offers security, status, and ease (even if these particulars are false). This is probably why God chooses to test us through money to keep us close.
Yesterday, this guy brought us a killer message at Awestruck about how God calls us to give. Yes, financially. No, not just your time or energy. Give from what you have been given. Money. Dinero.
When we go into debt we step away from using what God has provided into the land of what “man will ‘promise’ to provide” (emphasis future tense)…. Has a nice ring to it right? It will probably make a few people mad for me to say this, but it is not God’s will for us to be in debt, or play pretend with money. I like that…. ‘play pretend’… we all do that to a degree, I suppose. Well, that is what debt is… and debt keeps us from doing what God calls us to do…(see next paragraph) “The borrower is slave to the lender.”
Josh brought up the point that God is calling us to give. It is not an option. It is a command. “When you give….” So what does this mean. We are to give first, to something other than ourselves. (This isn’t a ploy for you to write me a check. Giving could be tithes, but noticeably absent from Josh’s message was a request for tithes at Awestruck. That is NOT what this is about). So Give. Then we are to Save. And after both of these, only then are we to LIVE off of the remainder.
This is such a countercultural idea. We have it fixated in our brains that if we need something, we go get it. Tell me how many times you have waited til the end of the month, with good intentions, of course, to give a gift of monetary significance to a cause and realized that it had already been spent. I did it last month! It is tough. That is why we are to give first.
Giving releases us from ourselves. It puts an emphasis on selflessness. Don’t give piously or just to be seen. Give with no regard to your own namesake or your own fame!
Give. Save. Live. In that order. It will change your life.
(kudos pastor josh, I needed to hear truth!)
Related posts:
