Giving That Works 1

I began yesterday to address myself to providing answers to the question, “Why do I give my offerings and sacrifices without receiving the promised supernatural rewards?”  And as I wrote yesterday, I believe the reasons millions of religious people fail to reap abundant harvests from their offerings and sacrifices can be grouped into two categories:

1. Problems associated with the giving side, and
2. Problems associated with the reaping side.

Giving to God as an act of worship is a sacred duty and must be in harmony, alignment, and perfect compliance with the instructions and nature of God.

Four Elements of Fruitful Giving

In order for you to enjoy fast and abundant harvests from your giving, it must have the following elements: – Unselfishness, A cheerful and generous attitude, consistency, and sacrifice.  Let me deal with each of these elements separately.

First of all, Your motive must be right…

If you are giving just to get a harvest, then you’ve missed the entire point.  I’ve taught and continue to teach that many are so focused on getting the rewards of their giving and alms that they miss the blessings.  Forget about the harvest and reward part.  If you are focused on that part in your giving, your giving attitude would easily become corrupted with greed and selfishness. Rather, trust God to fulfil His own part of the deal!  Just enjoy doing your own part.

If you want to reap fast and abundant harvests from your offerings and sacrifices, as a religious person, please understand that you must be unselfish.  Your motive in performing alms should be to:

• Honour God, the Creator of all the ends of this universe, and
• To bless others.

As I taught my 8 year old daughter recently, if you sacrifice your own life to God, for the good of the greater portion of humanity, then and only then would you be truly blessed.  The ultimate joy is that of looking back over the course of your life and knowing that you’ve lived a life of value to God and your fellow men.  So the right reward to look forward to, really, and one which will preserve you from greed and selfishness, is to gladden the heart of the Father with your offerings, and also to positively impact other people.

Let your motive in giving be to glorify God, fill other people’s lives with pleasure, and pleasure yourself too.

Secondly, you must give cheerfully, and generously…

Our offerings and sacrifices must move beyond the point of mere ‘religious obligations’ and rituals. 
It must become a pleasure! 
As a Christian, I believe that my relationship with God is not a religion, but rather a love affair!

If your religion is a mere list of ‘do’s’ and ‘don’ts’ then you are just another slave.  You must evolve into the state where it’s all a love affair between you and the Almighty God.  When this happens, your offerings and sacrifices become acts and expressions of love; pleasurable acts of spiritual worship.

God actually loves a cheerful giver!  Not the grumbling murmuring slavish type.

“…for God loves a cheerful giver.” ~ 2 Corinthians 9:7

Give cheerful, generously, with an unselfish motive, for that’s your surest path towards fabulous and abundant harvests.

I’ll continue with the other two elements of fruitful giving tomorrow.   And, remember that you can have my daily posts on the current series and others sent directly to you via email, just click here