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Give Me, Give Me, Give Me (continued)
In the first instance of giving to God, God accepted one gift and rejected the other. Why? Well turn to Genesis 4 and read for yourself that because Cain didn't put forth the best he could do that God wasn't happy. Able gave the first born of his animals and the fat of them. Turn to Exodus 35:5. Moses is told to take up an offering from the reluctant. Now if you don't read these verses I'm referencing you might not see what I just said was wrong. God said take up an offering from the willing. Cheerful giving is what God wants from you.
Listen, if some preacher is trying to tell you that if you sow into his ministry that you will get a lot, don't be fooled. You should give for two causes and one reason. The reason you should give is to be obedient to God. The causes are advancing the gospel and cause of Christ and taking care of the poor. Some of these preachers would like to quote 2 Corinthians 9:6, He who sows sparingly shall reap sparingly, he who sows in abundance will reap in abundance.
The problem is that they fail to teach the rest of this chapter. They often won't quote the part where it says not out of necessity. Or in other words you shouldn't give under pressure. The Jews lived under the law for thousands of years before Jesus came. Look at Galatians 3:23-25. Paul says the law served as a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, those in Christ are under grace not the law, and we are justified by faith. Read Genesis the 22nd chapter. Abraham was on his way to give his son as a sacrifice to God. Abraham shows absolute faith in God. One, he is willing to give everything. Two, he knows God will take care of the situation. The result of this faith by Abraham is that God provides the sacrifice and commends and rewards Abraham for being faithful. The only difference in our situation is that God has provided Jesus as the sacrifice up front. Since God has given us everything, we can only give back to God.
Finally, let's look at Luke 6:38. Although I believe that one should give without expecting God to give back, clearly this scripture teaches that God does give to those who give. And he uses the same measure. By what measure will you give to God? The other side of this is that there are only two reasons that people don't give to God. One is lack of faith, the other is greed. I'll address these two in another teaching.
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