“Giving Well” – FBC Morning Light (12/4/2024)

Well a good Wednesday morning to you. Today we are finishing up the book of 2nd Corinthians in our

Bible reading, chapters 9 to 13, and moving forward tomorrow we're gonna read a few verses in Acts and then jump back to the book of Romans, at least back to the book of Romans in our typical arrangement of the books of the

Bible. But today, 2nd Corinthians 9 and following, and I want to focus in on just a couple of verses in chapter 9 that should help us at this particular time of year where we get a lot of appeals to give.

I'm sure you're very well aware of that. You go to the grocery store and there's the guy out there with a bell and the red kettle appealing to you to drop some cash or change or coins or whatever in the in the red kettle.

Fine, if you want to help out Salvation Army, I hope if you have some coins you can do that. But beyond that,

I mean I've gotten mailers from everything from St. Jude's to again Salvation Army, the

American Heart Association, although wait a minute I think that one comes in February around Valentine's Day.

But anyway, you get a lot of them. And then if you watch, listen to any religious programming, various ministers will have their podcasts or whatever, you know you get you get a guy that does a morning light devotional and this time of year they may say something like, hey come on I need your help at this help us finish strong the end of the year, help us make up the deficit in our operating budget, and that kind of thing.

I'm not gonna do that. I promise I'm not gonna do that. You'll listen to plenty of others and hear those kinds of appeals.

All right so this is a time of year when there's a lot of appeals to give to the work of the

Lord, and most of those can be, I'm sure, perfectly legit.

In some cases you may feel a little bit of arm -twisting. I hope you don't experience that at the church you attend, where you know you you feel like the pastor's you know holding some kind of guilt over your head.

I hope that's not the case. But we get a lot of that, right? So how should we give?

Should I give? Well if it's a legitimate cause and you have the resources, nothing wrong with giving sacrificially and so forth to a legitimate cause, and that's what

Paul is addressing here in 2nd Corinthians 9. There is a legitimate cause. There are needy people back in Jerusalem, and Paul's taken up a benevolence offering for these situations, and he's calling upon the

Corinthians to contribute. They said they would, they promised earlier that they would do so, and now Paul says okay, follow through on that.

But here are some parameters to that giving. He says in verse 6 of 2nd

Corinthians 9, this I say, he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.

He's applying the principle of sowing and reaping. And you know, if you're stingy in your giving, you know, don't expect any great blessing out of that.

If you're generous in your giving, you can expect great blessing from the

Lord for that generosity. But, he goes on to say, let each one give as he purposes in his heart.

So don't allow yourself to be emotionally tied up in knots where you, out of a sense of manipulation, having been manipulated, you just give a bunch of money.

No, he says purpose in your heart. That implies some thought and some intentionality to your giving.

So think it through, Paul is saying. Think it through. Do this purposefully, and make sure, he goes on to say, that you do so not out of necessity or not grudgingly.

And far too often, I think ministers like me, sitting on a, you know, whatever, can kind of twist people's arms and make them feel guilty if they don't give to their church or to their cause or whatever.

And so, out of that sense of guilt and almost a sort of a sense of obligation, you write the check and you send it off, and then after the fact you're kind of begrudging that you did so.

Well, that can happen in our giving, and it doesn't, it shouldn't, it must not,

Paul says. Don't give in that way. Don't give grudgingly or of necessity.

Why? Because God loves a cheerful giver. A cheerful giver.

So here's the thing, I think, that we can gather from this. As there are plenty of opportunities for you to give of your financial resources to very good ministries, think it through.

Think it through. Desire and intend to be as generous as you can be, because, you know, he who sows bountifully will reap bountifully.

Think through, what can I realistically afford to give without causing problems in other areas of my financial life?

And can I give this willingly? And am

I giving without any sense of begrudging? Am I giving because I really want to, and it makes me happy to give?

That's how you want to give. May the Lord help us to do so. So our Father and our God, give us generous hearts, but hearts that are generous joyfully and willingly, we pray, in Jesus' name, amen.

All right, listen, have a good rest of your Wednesday, and I trust the Lord will bless you richly in it. Good day.