Wednesday. 3/12/14. Giving with Gratitude During a mission trip to Ecuador, I visited a Quichua Indian church located high in the windswept Andes Mountains. The pastor and his wife were proudly showing our volunteer team their church building when we saw a huge pile of yellow corn spilling out of gunnysacks in the corner of one room. I asked if there was any special significance to the mound of corn. They explained that in their agricultural community the believers always brought a tenth of whatever crop they harvested to the church as an offering to the Lord. The congregation used this food to share with those in their village who did not have enough to eat or to provide a meal on special days for their entire community as a testimony to God’s love and provision in their lives. I was amazed and moved at this level of generosity, gratitude, and obedience. What could happen in our own churches if we each chose to give back to the Lord literally a tenth of all we have? What needs could we meet with these resources? 2 Corinthians 8:1-9 8:1 We want you to know, brothers and sisters, about the grace of God that has been granted to the churches of Macedonia; 8:2 for during a severe ordeal of affliction, their abundant joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. 8:3 For, as I can testify, they voluntarily gave according to their means, and even beyond their means, 8:4 begging us earnestly for the privilege of sharing in this ministry to the saints-- 8:5 and this, not merely as we expected; they gave themselves first to the Lord and, by the will of God, to us, 8:6 so that we might urge Titus that, as he had already made a beginning, so he should also complete this generous undertaking among you. 8:7 Now as you excel in everything--in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in utmost eagerness, and in our love for you--so we want you to excel also in this generous undertaking. 8:8 I do not say this as a command, but I am testing the genuineness of your love against the earnestness of others. 8:9 For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.
Posted on: Wed, 12 Mar 2014 14:01:38 +0000