Spiritual Giving!
Verse for Today: Thursday, October 11, 2012
Genesis 28:22b – …..and of all that You give me I will give you a tenth.
It is important to know who the real giver of all blessings is. When we know the giver and how much He gives, it helps us to know how to respond to Him. The Sovereign God is the giver of all that we need and all that we ought to have. He is the true giver who knows what to give us and what not. His intention in giving us is to use it for His glory and for the accomplishment of His purpose on earth. He uses us in mysterious ways in His kingdom. He doesn’t want us to have anything in life that would detract us from Him. His giving is such that we would live in recognition of His gifts and live for Him. He wants us to live with the consciousness that He is the giver of all good things in the right measure. Those who trust Him lack no good thing. But as we recognize Him to be the sole Giver, He expects that we give ourselves and all that we have back to Him to be of use for His kingdom. Jacob understood this truth when he received the promises of God at Bethel. When he was overwhelmed by the unilateral promises, he was so moved as to vow to build a worship centre for God and to give tithes to Him. Today we ought to come to the realization that our lives should be given back to its Giver as holy and pleasing sacrifice of true, wholehearted and loyal worship. He wants us to know that He expects us to give ourselves completely to God. Any tithe that we give is a token of our acknowledgement that we belong to Him. If we do not give ourselves to Him, our tithes may not move the heart of God as true worship at all.
Dear reader, are you responding to God’s gifts to you? His greatest gift is your salvation and the fact that He chose you to be His child. As He purchased you with the blood of Jesus, you are His special possession. This is the new life that God wants you to enjoy and commit it totally to God. Through the Lord Jesus Christ, God the Father has given you a lot of resources and abilities to use for His glory. When you use it for Him, you are in essence giving it to God. But it is of paramount importance that you give yourself first and foremost to God, to be followed with all that you have. Jacob understood this truth as he saw the vision of God and heard His promises directly from heaven. He realized that even when he ran away, God loved him so much as to run after him to let him know about His divine plans for Jacob. This realization of the deep and immeasurable interest God has on Jacob overwhelmed his heart which led him to make a deeper commitment to God. Today God wants us to have such a commitment. Just as God promised all provisions in life for Jacob, He also promised us that He will meet all our needs and will bless us with His holy presence. We ought to acknowledge and appropriate these promises. Once we are thus committed to God, all that we have become His. The evidence of our commitment to God is the way we give ourselves to Him along with all that we have. Tithe is only an evidence of how cheerfully, eagerly and sincerely we give ourselves to the Lord. When we give to Him, it is guaranteed not to reduce our meager resources, but will only make is sufficient as God continues to supply for our needs. Thus God gets us fully and we get His favors to enjoy on all the days of our sojourn. Let this confidence, faith and trust rule our hearts today in the wake of our needs in the physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual realms of our lives.
2 Corinthians 9:7 – Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.
Thought for Today
When a child of God gives himself and all that he has to God, he is only giving back to God what has been given to him out of grace.
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