A Woman Desperately In Love With God Series

He is mindful of what you do and what you don’t do.

That leads me to the 2nd thing I noticed - God wasn’t interested in the size of the gift.

Look again with me at Luke 21:1-4

“As he looked up, Jesus saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury. He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins. ‘I tell you the truth,’ he said, ‘this poor widow has put in more than all the others. All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.’”

Now, I want you to realize Jesus never questioned the motivation of the rich in their giving. He’s not belittling them for what they put in these boxes. He simply compared their gift to the gift of this poor widow.

They gave out of the abundance of their wealth, they had a whole lot more where that came from… but she gave all she had!

Thus, what Jesus wants us to understand is that:

God doesn’t look at the size of our gifts.

He looks at the size of our hearts.

Some churches forget this.

They can in religious pomp and appreciation of wealth.

ILLUS: I personally know of a church that did just that. They were a big, influential congregation, and one of their elders was a man of power and money. If there was a project that needed to be done and the congregation couldn’t meet the need… he did. I don’t know how much money he had, but it had to be quite a lot because the church never knew what it was to be in want. He always gave generously to the church.

Then one day it was discovered that this elder was “fooling around”. He had a few girl friends in town, and he was a married man. When the preacher found out about it, he canned him - the man was removed from Eldership.

But as soon as that preacher moved on to another church… guess what that church did? That’s right, they put that Elder back into leadership. Why? Because he had money. He greased the wheels of that congregation and they didn’t want to lose the benefits of his wealth.

In the days of Jesus, the most important people in church were the “teachers of the Law”

They were important, they were wealthy, and the appeared to be highly religious.

But Jesus pointed these guys out to His disciples and said:

"Beware of the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and love to be greeted in the marketplaces and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets.”

Why did these men have positions of prominence in the synagogues and such?

They had money - they could help pay the bills.

And they were important – it was an “honor” to have these men in the congregation.

But where did these rich and powerful men get their money?

“They devour widows’ houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. Such men will be punished most severely.” Luke 20:46-47

Now not all important, wealthy people are bad. In fact there are many such people who make a sizable difference in the spreading of the gospel. But if a church is not careful it can fall into the trap of looking more on the outside of a person - and less upon their heart.