SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 10/17/2020 10:18 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-3 “The Purpose and Reward of True
Giving”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
6:3-4
Message of the verses: “3 "But when you give alms, do not let your
left hand know what your right hand is doing 4 that your alms may be in secret; and your
Father who sees in secret will repay you.”
As
we begin this SD this morning we will begin to look at what John MacArthur
describes finding in the Scriptures seven principles that will guide us in
nonhypocritical giving. Seeing how this
is Saturday we will only look at three of these, and then Lord willing we will
look at the other four in our next SD.
The
first Scriptural principle for giving is that giving from the heart is
investing with God and we will look at some verses to show us this
principle. Luke 6:38 “"Give, and it
will be given to you. They will pour into your lap a good measure-pressed down,
shaken together, and running over. For by your standard of measure it
will be measured to you in return.’” 2
Corinthians 9:6 “Now this I say, he who sows sparingly will also reap
sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.”
Second
principle of giving is to be sacrificial.
We will see in 2 Samuel 24:24 that David refuses to give to the Lord
that what cost him nothing: “However,
the king said to Araunah, "No, but I will surely buy it from you
for a price, for I will not offer burnt offerings to the LORD my God which cost
me nothing." So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty
shekels of silver.” MacArthur adds “Generosity
is not measured by the size of the gift itself, but by its size in comparison
to what is possessed. The widow who gave
‘two small copper coins’ to the Temple treasury gave more than all the ‘many
rich people [who] were putting in large sums’ because ‘they all put in out of
their surplus, but she, out of her poverty, put in all she owned, all she had
to live on’ (Mark 12:41-44).
The
third responsibility for giving has to do with relationship to how much a
person has. The person who is not
generous when he is poor will not be generous if he then becomes rich. Although he might give larger amounts he will
not give a larger proportion. Luke 16:10
“"He who is faithful in a very little thing is faithful also in much; and
he who is unrighteous in a very little thing is unrighteous also in much.” MacArthur adds “IT is extremely important to
teach children to give generously to the Lord with whatever small amounts of
money they get, because the attitudes and patterns they develop as children are
likely to be the ones they follow when they are grown. Giving is not a matter of how much money one
has but of how much love and care is in the heart.”
10/17/2020 10:35 AM
No comments:
Post a Comment