Giving is a spiritual discipline...Matthew 6:1-4...The 2 ways to give

 

I got my feet wet in the alpine lake of Lake Parika after hiking 9 miles to get there.  A rise of about 2800 feet in elevation and 6 hours of breath taking scenery.  Parika Peak is behind me and someday I hope to summit it.  It takes some discipline to make these hikes.  It was another 3 hours to get back to the trailhead before heading home.

We ventured into Matthew 6 this week and what I call the trilogy of spiritual disciplines, giving, praying and fasting.  The similar language that Jesus uses in each of these shows us that each is important to the life of the believer.  It is interesting that He starts with the one that we might think less of as a spiritual discipline.  Maybe it is also the one that we as less to be diligent at even though it is probably the one most easily to keep these days.  We can now schedule our giving to be done and forget about it.  Pretty hard to do that with prayer and fasting.

The Bible gives us 2 ways to give.  This passage deals with one of them but it is good to know both.  We are to give corporately, the storehouse principle of Malachi 3:10, and we are to give privately, the consider the poor principle of Psalm 41:1.  It is good to note that it isn't just that we give but how we give that matters with different Biblical instructions for corporately and privately.  

I like to think of giving as investing in God with what God has provided.  The key is that we treat what we have as ultimately from Him.  It is the key to keeping Deuteronomy 16:17 (LSB) punctuated by its last phrase.  "Every man shall give as he is able, according to the blessing of Yahweh your God which He has given you."  And after being told that we need to be cheerful givers in 2 Corinthians 9:7 (LSB) it is followed with these words in verse 8, "And God is able to make every grace abound to you, so that in everything at every time having every sufficiency, you may have an abundance for every good deed;" When I give God's way, I will have everything that I need and that will be more than enough to keep serving Him by serving others.

Lastly, the instruction to the rich churches in Corinth with the example of the poor churches in Macedonia who were generous givers beyond their means, Paul gives them these words that show us how much this giving practice is a spiritual discipline.  2 Corinthians 8:7 (LSB) says, "But just as you abound in everything, in faith and word and knowledge and in all earnestness and in the love we inspired in you, see that you abound in this gracious work also." What is this gracious work that we are to abound in also?  It is the spiritual discipline of giving.  We abound in a growing faith; we abound in a growing witness of Him; we abound in our knowledge and application of His word; we abound in our using of our spiritual gifts for His glory; we abound in our love of Him and others; and we are to abound in our generosity, corporately and individually.  

It was a good morning to preach this because we had visitors in the gathering and it showed our congregation that the chapter by chapter and verse by verse method of going through the Bible together helps us to grow in all that Jesus has said.

Adam



A simple man serving a great God and the local pastor of Stillwater Community Chapel (stillwater-chapel.org). We are in our 38th year of full time ministry. God directed us to this local body of believers on the Western Range of the Rockies to grow with them in mission and mindedness of Christ.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Galatians #15 - Galatians 6:11-18 - "On The Road Again..."

Image
  Another week closer and it involves some more travel for the Wolfgangs.  I feel like the Willy Nelson song, " On the road again... "  I don't know if I agree with the next line though. " ...I can't wait to get on the road again. " One of the members of the church in Wisconsin calculated that I will travel well over 10,000 miles to make this transition.  Traveling mercies prayers please. Last Sunday we will look at Paul's final words to the churches in Galatia.  He brought them the gospel (good news) message of Jesus and what resulted were churches forming throughout the region.  The letter is to defend that message that our salvation comes from and is in Christ alone.  Christ's sacrifice on the cross was sufficient for the forgiveness of our sins.  The summary statement of the letter is found in  Galatians 6:15 (LSB) .  " For neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. "  Translated another way earlie...
Read more

God gave us a good weather window to travel...yeah God!!!

Image
  Berthoud Pass Here we are at the top of Berthoud Pass.  It was a whirlwind week to conduct a " hand off " service in Wisconsin on 3/17 and then preach a Palm Sunday sermon in Colorado on 3/24.  We give God all the glory for this happening.  So there are two video links at the bottom of this blog.  One is for the Wisconsin service and the other is for the Colorado service.  I racked up over 12,000 in the last 7 weeks.   I love to take these pictures sitting from the front row of chairs and listening to the one God has provided for the church I had been serving for 20 months.  I now have 3 and I am so thankful for the opportunity God gave us to serve Him in this type of ministry over the last 5 years.  It has been great to add to our daily prayer list Zach in Maine, Chris in Ohio and now Stephen in Wisconsin. This was our set up for the 2000+ mile trip.  No " hiccups " except for the strong eastern winds in Kansas.  Of course e...
Read more

Resurrection Sunday in a new space...Matthew 27.62-28.20

Image
  Resurrection Sunday has come and gone but it was a sweet day to be with the gathered saints of the Stillwater Community Chapel .  We are venturing through the Gospel of Matthew and this Sunday will take us back to Matthew 1.1 but last Sunday we were in Matthew 27.62-28.20.  It was a lot to cover so the white board was truly a help to keep me on track.  This year in my Resurrection Sunday message, I focused on the contrast of the cover-up story of the disciples stealing the body of Jesus fueled by a bride and the commission of speaking of a risen Lord fueled by boldness . After the service upstairs, we ventured downstairs to the lower level and had a great meal together.  The conversations around the tables allowed us to continue to talk about the passage of Scripture we covered upstairs.  Maybe this is a very informal picture of what happens at the  Waushara Community Church called the " Going Deeper " classes of the Come For More hour following t...
Read more