Someone recently asked why a Christian should give. Sure, it is a blessing to those who receive the gift. Missionaries appreciate the gifts given by church members. I can assure you that Keswick appreciates the many generous gifts that are given to them. The Bible also tells us that the giver is blessed even more than the one that receives the gift. (Acts 20:35) So yes there is very definitely a blessing received by both the gift-giver and the gift-receiver.
But God has given us the opportunity to grow closer to Him through giving. The Bible outlines three levels of giving and as we grow in our Christian walk we can experience all three. The deeper our walk with Christ, the higher the level of giving we experience.
The first level of giving is tithing. We call this Sharing from obedience. We talked about this level in the last few posts. It is the starting point for a Christian’s giving. 2 Corinthians 9:6 says that as we give God will bless us. This is the law of sowing and reaping. But this is just level one in our journey to grow through our giving.
Level two is Sharing from our abundance. One of the reasons that God will bless us is to meet someone else’s needs. This may be the needs of a ministry or church or individuals. Remember how Paul complimented the Macedonian believers in 2 Corinthians 8:12-15? He said “Your abundance being a supply for their need”. And the early church shared one with each other (Acts 2:44-45). When God blesses us with that unexpected tax refund, overtime or gift we have a big responsibility to determine the Holy Spirit’s leading for what we should do with that blessing.
1 John 3:17 says that when God blesses us and we ignore our brothers and sisters in need, that God’s love is not in us. Those are pretty strong words for Christians living in America who are in the top 20% of the wealthiest people in the world.
But once we grow through level two we look to level three on our giving growth chart. Level three is when start sharing sacrificially or giving when it costs us something. Maybe someone you know has lost their job and you decide to live on baked beans and hot dogs this month and give that family half of your food budget. Or perhaps we know of someone that is really struggling and we decide to forgo our vacation this year so they can pay their rent for a couple of months.
The purest example of sacrificial giving is Christ. Philippians 2:7 says that He emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant and being made in the likeness of men. Just for a minute think about what Christ sacrificed by giving up being the most Exalted Being in heaven to come and live among us as a homeless person (Matthew 8:20).
No matter where we might be on our journey of giving, we need to stretch to the next level. God has blessed us and with those blessings come responsibilities. (Luke 12:48b). Those responsibilities include growing in our walk with Christ though our giving.
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