In Your Bible Read This Out Loud:
Malachi 3:8-12
Memorise This Verse: Malachi 1:6
'If I am a master, where is the respect due to me' says the Lord
Almighty'
Afterwards Talk About This:
To what extent does a lack of finance hinder the work of God.
Something To Do Before Next Time:
In prayer, seek God as to whether your giving ishelping or hindering the
spread of the gospel.
Written Diploma Work: Write
one side on the three people who are robbed when we choose not to give.
Meditate Word By Word On This Verse:
Proverbs 11:24
The previous sections have looked at all
the reasons and benefits that we can experience as givers and certainly
there are many good reasons to be givers. However just as there are
benefits to being a giver, there are also costs of choosing to not be a
giver. The major area that this section will look at is the fact that
when we choose not to give we rob 3 different categories of people God,
ourselves and our brothers and sisters in the body of Christ.
Mention has already been made of Malachi
chapter 3 where the Lord himself declares that the non-tither is
actually robbing him. Since all the money in the world is ultimately
God's, when we choose not to return the tithe back to him we have
retained what doesn't belong to us and as such we have withheld God's
money from him. Most Christians would not even dream of regularly
robbing one of their friends or family members yet they choose to rob
God week in and week out by not tithing
Those who choose not to give have a
fractured relationship with their heavenly father as it is hard to have
a close, intimate relationship with someone whom you are regularly
robbing. The Christian who chooses not to give, is in the untenable
position of regularly going to church and worshipping and praising God
and then straight after robbing God by not putting anything in the
offering plate.
The non-giving will sing about how great
and awesome and glorious God is yet does not believe that God is worth
giving 10% of your income to. It can surely be rightly argued that a
'Christian' who does not give financially to the work of God is a
contradiction in terms.
Perhaps you are not yet a giver is it not
clear what a contradiction your position is? If God is as big and
glorious as you sing he is and as awesome as you say he is and as
wonderful you tell everyone he is then surely it is absurd not to trust
him with your finances. Eventually, you will have to put your money
where your mouth is if the God you claim to have a relationship with is
the true and living God, and not a dead God, then it is time to prove
the living God in your finances. If you can't trust God with your
finances which is one of the most precious areas of your life (by
firstly giving to him and then seeing him bless back to you what you
have sown to him) then what sort of unfaithful and untrustworthy God are
you serving?
The second person we rob when we choose
not to give is that we literally rob ourselves of the blessing of God.
Let it be emphatically stated first of all that God's love is not
conditional on the way we live our Christian lives we relate to God on
the basis of grace and not good actions or deeds such that God doesn't
love us when we are good and not love us when we are bad. However whilst
the love of God is unconditional, the blessings of God are conditional
on us meeting the criteria laid down in the bible that need to be met to
appropriate the blessings.
The criteria that God has laid down
regarding appropriating financial blessings is not praying or begging
for them but giving firstly to him and he will then release his many
different blessings back to us.
By not giving we do not avail ourselves
of the spiritual laws and criteria that govern finances and by not
giving the laws will work against us and not for us. Through not giving,
we will fail to experience the fullness of God's blessings because we
will put ourselves in a position where we tie God's hands and no amount
of prayer, spiritual warfare and resisting the devil will cause the
blessings to come. God is determined and resolved to bless us but to
release these blessings we must abide by the laws governing seed time
and harvest and giving and receiving and through not giving we steal our
own blessings away from ourselves.
Sadly, people want quick fixes and short
cuts to financial prosperity and whilst God can do this, it would appear
that to know long- term constant blessings we need long term, constant
sowing of finances into the Kingdom of God. Giving should be a lifetime
commitment and not something that we try when we need some extra money
to go on holiday with.
The third person who we rob through not
giving is our brother and sister in Christ - namely, the person whom God
wanted to bless by using you and me to give money to them. When we enter
the Kingdom of God we automatically join a new race of human beings who
share the same Heavenly Father and who become our spiritual brothers and
sisters. By every member of the Kingdom being givers, God has ordained a
method by which poverty could be eradicated amongst his children and the
work of preaching the gospel where it has never been heard can be fully
supported.
By not giving we delay the master plan of
God and can greatly hinder someone else's blessings as God wishes to use
us to meet the needs of our struggling brothers and sisters.
For example, suppose a person from your
church faithfully responds to a call to be a missionary to a gospel
resistant land in North Africa this is presented to the church and the
calling is confirmed by the leadership. As this decision to send a
missionary out is presented to the church it could be that God speaks to
5 specific people who are prosperous to make a commitment to financially
support this missionary.
The missionary could then present their
vision to the church and they wisely tell the people that they will not
go to the mission field until they receive sufficient financial pledges.
If only 2 out of the 5 people make financial commitments then
insufficient funds will come in and the missionary cannot go the mission
field and the gospel cannot be taken where it has never been preached.
If you are not a giver, you are hindering the spread of the gospel and
the work of God is delayed and you have robbed blessings from your
brothers and sisters.
A further cost to not giving is that it
betrays our true feelings towards God and the work of taking the gospel
to unreached people groups. By not giving, you practically cast a vote
for the closure of every church, the laying off of every Pastor and
Christian worker, the calling home of every missionary from the missions
field and the closing of every Christian school, hospital and
orphanage.
By not giving we show that we think that
God and his Kingdom is not worthy of our money we may claim that we
believe in the preaching of the gospel and seeing people saved but our
refusal to give to the work of God contradicts what we claim to believe.
If everyone chose not to give to the work of God then the Kingdom of God
would be crippled if everyone chose to be generous givers, the Kingdom
of God would greatly advance which of these two camps do you fall into?
Finally, the last cost of not giving is
the fact that the non-giver actually mocks God by choosing not to give
for example, Galatians 6:7 says, 'Do not be
deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows'. God
has declared in his word that he has set in place a spiritual law of
seedtime and harvest and sowing and reaping and by not giving we mock
God by ignoring what he has said in his word.
Through not giving we say to God that we
do not need him in our finances and that we can ignore what he says
about giving and receiving which is why Galatians 6:7 says that a
non-giver is deceived and is mocking God. You may never dream of mocking
God with your praise and worship and prayers but the scriptures declare
that through not giving you are mocking God.
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Prayer for the Poorer Nations
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