
// We
giving.
Proverbs 11:25 GNT
Be generous, and you will be prosperous. Help others, and you will be helped.
Luke 6:38
[Jesus said,] “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 back to you.”
2 Corinthians 9:7
Each person should do as he has decided in his heart—not reluctantly or out of compulsion, since God loves a cheerful giver.
Greek : hilaros = “cheerful, joyous”
// Giving is a
to what God has already done for us.
>> When we give…
1) We are
that everything we have comes from God in the first place.
Psalm 24:1
The earth and everything in it,
the world and its inhabitants,
belong to the Lord;
1 Chronicles 29:14
[David said,] “But who am I, and who are my people, that we should be able to give as generously as this? For everything comes from you, and we have given you only what comes from your own hand.”
2) We are
that God is going to take care of us.
Matthew 6:28-34
[Jesus said,] “Why do you worry about clothes? Observe how the wildflowers of the field grow: They don’t labor or spin thread. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was adorned like one of these. If that’s how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and thrown into the furnace tomorrow, won’t he do much more for you—you of little faith? So don’t worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you. Therefore don’t worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”
3) We are refusing to let money be our
.
Matthew 6:24
[Jesus said,] “No one can serve two masters, since either he will hate one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”
// Don’t serve your money. Let your money serve the Lord and it will serve
.
// You will
for your god.
2 Corinthians 8:1-7 NIV
And now, brothers and sisters, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. In the midst of a very severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity. For I testify that they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability. Entirely on their own, they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the Lord’s people. And they exceeded our expectations: They gave themselves first of all to the Lord, and then by the will of God also to us. So we urged Titus, just as he had earlier made a beginning, to bring also to completion this act of grace on your part. But since you excel in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in complete earnestness and in the love we have kindled in you—see that you also excel in this grace of giving.
// God doesn’t need our money. He’s after our
.
>>
Malachi 3:7-9 NIV
“Ever since the time of your ancestors you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you,” says the Lord Almighty.
“But you ask, ‘How are we to return?’
“Will a mere mortal rob God? Yet you rob me.
“But you ask, ‘How are we robbing you?’
“In tithes and offerings. You are under a curse—your whole nation—because you are robbing me.”
Malachi 3:10 NIV
“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.”
>>
1 Corinthians 13:3 GNT
I may give away everything I have, and even give up my body to be burned—but if I have no love, this does me no good.
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