Steppin To A New Level Of Blessing Series

Stepping Up To A New Level Of Blessing

GNLCC Proverbs 3:5-10 2 Corinthians 9:

Have you ever blessed someone with a surprise gift that you knew he or she was going to love? There was a sense of expectation of joy and delight in your own heart as the person open the gift. Sometimes the person’s smile or ahhh made it worth it to you to have paid for the gift. You recognized that there is a special joy in being a blessing to someone else.

But then there is also a sort of dark side to be a blessing. Take for instance Karen who was a single mom. Even though times were hard, she saved together $75 to have a special day for her 12 year old son John. Karen decided she would give John $50 to go buy some shoes and she would spend the $25 on herself. She took the money out of her special hiding saving place and called in John. She said “today is our special blessing day”. John was as delighted to receive the $50 as she was to give it. She put the other $25 back into the hiding place.

John rushed down to the store to purchase the shoes. The ones he intended to purchase came to 48.99 with tax. But John saw a later style of shoes and they came to $74.88 with tax. John then decided to go back home and get some of the money he saw his mother hide away. John took the money out of the place and went and bought the shoes.. Boy, was he ever going to impress his friends with the new shoes that he had brought.

When Karen comes home, she sees a piece of paper on the floor. It’s a receipt for a pair of shoes, $74.88. Karen goes to her secret hiding place and looks for her special day blessing envelope. It’s not where she placed it. She finally discovers the envelope in the trash torn in half. If you were Karen, how would you feel inside. Hurt, Angry, Disappointed, Sad. Would you rush to find John, or would you wait for him to come and admit what he had done?

Suppose you put the envelope on the table at dinner time, and asked him, “John did you get the shoes and were you thankful.” Suppose he ignored the envelope and said “yes mom, I got the shoes and they are wonderful. Thank you so much for blessing me with them.” Now how are you feeling about the gift and about John.

Well you may have a glimpse of what goes on in the heart of God when He blesses with things to make us happy only for us to come back and take from Him. You see, all the money that we have comes from God, because everything in the world belongs to God. God says here, I give you this money. You keep 90% of it and let me have the other 10%. At first we are glad to get such a huge amount, but then we go out and we see things that we want. And rather than wait to get them, like John, we sneak back and take the 10% that God had wanted to use to bless others. How many of you here intended to tithe, but then the car note was higher, the cell phone bill was more, or the mortgage with taxes, costs more than you had thought it was going to. There’s a lot of John lurking in the hearts of believers.

The amazing thing about God, is that God only asks for the 10% in order to bless us with more than what we had before. Yet so many of us are not willing to step up to a new level of blessing. There are three reasons we do not give. 1. We simply are not thankful for what God has done for us. 2. We are simply greedy and do not care for what God has done for us. Or 3 we are afraid that God will not come through for us. For those of you who are in group one or two, this sermon is not for you. Your problem is, you have not gotten saved and you need to make Jesus Christ Lord and Savior of your life. I want to talk to those of you who are afraid to trust God.

First let me ask you, what are you trusting in? Is there anyone foolish enough to trust in their job as their source of income? Do you know how many people have lost good paying jobs in the last year. Jobs that they thought would be there for a lifetime. Most of us are at will employees which means we could lose our jobs tomorrow by doing absolutely nothing wrong. Someone in a boardroom could make the decision to want to make more money and your job is gone.