I started living, when I started Giving to God
I was enjoying this week, something unusual i don’t get to, sleeping in on a Saturday morning,
As I woke refreshed, after having coffee, I was thinking about how good God is and how truly blessed that we are,
What an incredible life God has given to all of us,
There’s an old chorus we used to sing and its also the title to my message this morning;
I started living when I started giving to God,
I started living when I started giving to God,
Pressed down shaken todather and running over,
I started living when I started giving to God,
I don’t know about the rest of you, but the words of that song, ring true in my life!
You see, TBS. it rains on the just and the unjust!
And I believe, that’s part of the reason people have such a hard time with giving!
Because the world looks around and says, well so and so aren’t givers and just look at the pile of dough that they have.
While that may be true, we don’t know that their really living do we?,
Because we all know of stories of famous, wealthy people, who were to have thought to have it all, that were miserable and their lives ended to soon.
True living starts, when you give your life to God, your whole life to him,
He’s looking for an the inclusive gift of you, because He wants everything you have, He’s looking for your all!
Most people don’t have a hard time with their heart, that seems easy enough,
your heart, in exchange for all of eternity, that’s a pretty good swap,
but you’re wallet, now that’s a different story!
Its interesting, that people love to talk and hear about the love of God after all, its mentioned 697 times in the NIV.
Its interesting that people love to talk and hear about healing in the bible, its mentioned many times and there are more than 90 healing scriptures in the bible.
Its interesting that people love to talk and hear about blessings in the bible, everybody loves to be blessed and altogether its mentioned 433 times.
But when it comes to the word giving, which is mentioned more than 1,500 times,
The one that everyone should be excited about and while some who understand how the law of reserprosity are always excited about giving, most people are not to excited about giving,
Either because they don’t understand it, or they never seen it work in their life first hand.
Now getting might be a different story, everyone likes to receive,
but if your not willing to give much, your not going to get much either.
Ill. I like the old story about the guy who came to church with his family. As they were driving home afterwards he was complaining about everything. He said, “The music was too loud. The sermon was too long. The announcements were unclear. The building was hot. The people were unfriendly.” He went on & on, complaining about virtually everything. Finally, his very observant son said, “Dad, you’ve got to admit it wasn’t a bad show for just a dollar.”
Luke 6:38 NKJ
38 Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.”
We must admit, when we here on the news, when Bill Gates on some other Wealthy person,
makes a large gift or donation to some charity, we may think wow, what a big giver.
But I tell you this amazing fact, there has never been or will never be a bigger giver than God.
John 3:16,17 NKJ
16. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
17. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
Gods gift of His Son and His Grace message, has never stopped giving from day one.
And the same freedom that Grace gives to us and that we enjoy in every other area in our lives, we should enjoy in our giving.
The more control we give over to God in every area of our lives to more He is able to bless us completely in every area of our lives.
Looking back on my own life, I can tell you when I gave everything over to the Lord including my finances,
Was the moment, He was able to start shaking it together and start to make it run over and pour out a blessing that was uncontainable.
We’ve heard a lot of hoopla lately about the statement “you didn’t build it”, you know talking about peoples businesses,
And many people were offended, because many people who are in business work hard and put in a lot of hours.
But I can tell you, when you turn everything over to God, including your finances of your business
And not just your business, but your life as well and trust him with 100%, that statement would be correct,
because at that point, God is going to get involved and help you build your business, like nobodies business!
And by the way if you trust him with 100%, that means you also,
have to trust Him with the 10% of your first fruits that make up your tithe,
And when you do, you can expect His Favor and Grace to work in your Business and your life like never before.
You won’t have to worry or figure things out, because there will be more than enough to get the job done,
to propel you light years ahead of where and what you could have done on your own.
2 Cor. 9:8 NKJ
8. And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work.
2 Cor. 9:8-11 MSG.
8-11. God can pour on the blessings in astonishing ways so that you’re ready for anything and everything, more than just ready to do what needs to be done. As one psalmist puts it,
He throws caution to the winds,
giving to the needy in reckless abandon.
His right-living, right-giving ways
never run out, never wear out.
This most generous God who gives seed to the farmer that becomes bread for your meals is more than extravagant with you. He gives you something you can then give away, which grows into full-formed lives, robust in God, wealthy in every way, so that you can be generous in every way, producing with us great praise to God.
His right-living, right-giving ways
never run out, never wear out.
Its His right-living, right-giving ways, not ours that is able to work in our lives the way we would all like.
Ours is to only believe that He will keep His word, if we trust Him with everything we have.
If we trust Him enough, to trust Him with our life in the first place, and
*That He is able to forgive us from a life time of sin and save our souls
*That He is able to supernaturally take us with Him, either way, at death or when He returns one day in the eastern sky, to live forever with Him
*That He is able to Heal our bodies, when we are sick, broken hearted when all else fails
*That He is willing to provide for us and make a way where there is no way and supply all our needs.
*That He is able to protect us in every situation that we may come up against
Shouldn’t we also trust Him enough, that He will be able to do what He says He will do, with our giving?
If we are willing to trust Him in one area of our lives, shouldn’t we be able to trust Him in every area as well?
That’s what tithing is, a matter of trust, trusting that He is more capable than our self effort.
He doesn’t need our money, He already owns it all,
There has never been anything made or created, that wasn’t His in the first place.
We only have what we have, because of His generosity in the first place
Everything we have, whether we are willing to admit or not, belongs to Him
We need to tithe, because its part of the total package of our worship, its all part of our faith in Him.
Hebrews 11:6 NKJ
6. But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
The word reward, always is associated with generosity and there is no one that is more generous than God.
Mal. 3:8-11 NKJ
8.“Will a man rob God?
Yet you have robbed Me!
But you say,
‘In what way have we robbed You?’
In tithes and offerings.
9 You are cursed with a curse,
For you have robbed Me,
Even this whole nation.
10 Bring all the tithes into the storehouse,
That there may be food in My house,
And try Me now in this,”
Says the Lord of hosts,
“If I will not open for you the windows of heaven
And pour out for you such blessing
That there will not be room enough to receive it.
11 “And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes,
So that he will not destroy the fruit of your ground,
Nor shall the vine fail to bear fruit for you in the field,”
Says the Lord of hosts;
We can see here in scripture just how generous God wants to be with us.
try Me now in this,”
Says the Lord of hosts,
“If I will not open for you the windows of heaven
And pour out for you such blessing
That there will not be room enough to receive it.
Its talking about an all encompassing blessing here, God doesn’t like being limited
and when it comes to His blessing on us when we are faithful, why on earth would we want to limit Him.
Nobody can define the word Blessing like God Can,
But it also says here, if you don’t tithe, you are cursed with a curse,
It’s the curse of the world, the curse of the accuser and everything he wants to do to everyone that exists.
Its not a curse from God, God wants to rebuke the devourer for your sakes,
So that he will not destroy the fruit of your ground,
Nor shall the vine fail to bear fruit for you in the field,”
When you make God your source, instead of yourself or mans no how, He is duty bound to bless you,
And I’ll tell something else about God,
He is confident in His capabilities,
He wants you to live in the land that’s flowing with milk and honey,
He’s not limited by your circumstance, if He was , He would have never been able to bring to children of Israel out of Egypt,
They weren’t just in a recession like the world has been experiencing, but they were in bondage,
He wasn’t limited then, He Blessed them in spite of their circumstances, they walked out of there with all the wealth in Egypt.
And when you make Him your source and trust Him, He will do the same for you, Praise God!
Put Him first place in your life, step into the abundant, extravagant life He has already prepared for you and I know He won’t disappoint you when you do.
And before you know it you’ll be singing the title to this sermon,
I started living, when I started Giving To God!
Praise The Lord for His Faithfulness!
Lets pray
