“The person who is taught God's
word should share all good things with his teacher. Make no mistake about this:
You can never make a fool out of God. Whatever you plant is what you'll
harvest. If you plant in [the soil of] your corrupt nature, you will harvest
destruction. But if you plant in [the soil of] your spiritual nature, you will
harvest everlasting life.” Gal6:6-8 GW. GOD
a) Give
where you are fed
Have you
ever bought chips at Javas and gone to pay for it at Steers? Of course not. You
give where you are fed!
“The one who is taught the word is
to share all good things with the one who teaches him. Do not be deceived, God
is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. For the one who
sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows
to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. Let us not lose heart in
doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary.” Gal6:6-9
Most
Christians give where they are begged and not where they are fed. Most of us
only give to those ministries/churches/ministers who beg us and those in
trouble. When you have a ministry or minister that is ministering to you and feeding
you, you are obligated by scripture to sow some of your finances and other
material things back into them.
This helps
to meet the needs of that minister or ministry and also ensures that they will
be able to continue ministering to you in the future.
Mal3:10 “Bring all the tithes into
the storehouse, That there may be food in My house, And try Me now in
this," Says the LORD of hosts, " If I will not open for you the
windows of heaven And pour out for you such blessing That there will not be
room enough to receive it” NKJV
We should
give where we are being fed the Word of God. It is not proper to be fed the
Word in one place and give our tithe and offerings in another place. The storehouse
is where food was stored.
In our
context, it is where we are fed the Word of God and ministered to and built up.
Ideally that should be our local church. HOWEVER this is not always the case.
Many of us go to churches where we are not being fed the Word, we go there for
other purposes but are being fed somewhere else. Give the bulk of your finances
where you are being fed.
God said
to bring the tithe AND the offerings to the storehouse. If your church is not
feeding and ministering you don’t tithe there, find another church where you
will be fed and ministered to and tithe there.
If for
whatever reason you can’t leave a church that is not feeding you and
ministering to you then don’t give the bulk of your finances there. Give where
you are fed and ministered to, that is your storehouse! Feeding in one place
& giving in another is like ordering for ice cream in Javas and then going
to Fido-dido to pay for it! It is theft!
If we all
quit giving where we were being begged, threatened & manipulated and
instead started giving only where we were being fed there would be tremendous
changes. For starters those churches/ministries and ministers that are feeding
God’s people would thrive and have more meaningful impact in their communities
and in the nations.
Secondly,
those that are not feeding the people of God would simply collapse. We would
get rid of all these fake preachers, false prophets & businessmen and
conmen on pulpits. They would go look for another business to do.
b) The
poor you shall have with you always
1Kings10
2 She came to Jerusalem with a very
great retinue, with camels that bore spices, very much gold, and precious
stones… 10 Then she gave the king one
hundred and twenty talents of gold, spices in great quantity, and precious
stones. There never again came such abundance of spices as the queen of Sheba
gave to King Solomon
Do you
think there were no poor and needy people in Ethiopia? Why did the queen of
Sheba come and give all of those riches to Solomon instead of giving them to
the poor and needy among her subjects?
Solomon
didn’t need her stuff. He was the wealthiest man in the world. And yet she gave
him a lot of wealth.
It was a
necessary investment she needed to make. She knew that if she met him and
gleaned his wisdom she would be able to prosper much more in the future.
And indeed
when she met him he told her everything she asked and gave her incredible
wisdom. Plus he gave her riches from his own treasury which were much more than
what she had given him. She sowed bountifully and reaped bountiful. She gave
and it was given to her good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running
over.
Many times
we are moved by pity and sympathy and so give only to the neediest and where we
feel our gift will have the biggest impact. This is not necessarily wrong. In
fact it is right and godly to give to the poor and the needy.
However we
need to follow this principle and give the bulk of our finances to those that
feed us and minister the Word. To those who reach out and share the gospel with
the world and who are serving and working for the kingdom of God. Even if they
may not SEEM to need our gift, or they are prospering and in better shape than
us.
This is
what the queen did. She didn’t give to the poor and the needy for a season
because she was investing into her future and her kingdom’s future. After she had
given she was able to receive much more than she had before. She was a lot
wealthier now and was well able to meet the needs of her people because she had
more.
What had
appeared to be an inconsiderate, careless, irresponsible act turned out to be a
masterstroke.
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