GIVING
My giving is in direct response to God being able to take care of me
My giving is in direct response to someone I have decided to depend on
My giving is a response to God who has done some awesome things in my life and my family’s life.
My giving comes from a place of a willing heart, willing mind, and its relational.
It’s not financial, it’s relational. It’s a reflection of my love for him. If you turn this into a financial way instead of a relational mode where you depend and rely on him- you miss the blessing in this.
GRACE WILL MEET YOU
Romans 6:14 Sin is no longer your master, for you no longer live under the requirements of the law. Instead, you live under the freedom of God’s grace.
Galatians 3:13-14 But Christ has rescued us from the curse pronounced by the law. When he was hung on the cross, he took upon himself the curse for our wrongdoing. For it is written in the Scriptures, “Cursed is everyone who hung on a tree.
Through Christ Jesus, God has blessed the Gentiles with the same blessing he promised to Abraham, so that we who are believers might receive the promised Holy Spirit through faith.
Christ has delivered us from all the curses of the law.
Anything regarding you not giving, you were delivered from. Some people feel they are cursed, their family is cursed. If I’m cursed, then what Jesus did means nothing today. Being a Jesus Following, everything from heaven should motivate you. Don’t let church people shame you, guilt you into giving you. Shaming is not God. “He that believe the on me should not be put to shame”
Grace will meet you at some point in your life.
People will try to put a hex on you, declaring you will never be anything, declaring your family is nothing, but grace met you. Just because you’re having a hard time, that doesn’t mean you are cursed. YOU ARE BLESSED!!!!!
- You are not cursed by what you don’t do. And you are not blessed by what you do. I’m blessed by WHAT JESUS DID, AND WHAT HE DID FOR ME.
Commandments
Before the cross, you were saved by keeping the commandments
- Matthew 19:16-17
After the cross, we’re saved by believing in Jesus
“They replied, Believe in the Lord and you will be saved.
- Acts 16:31
FORGIVENESS
1 Cor. 16:2 On the first day of each week, you should each put aside a portion of the money you have earned (Pray on this: consider how God has blessed you and set it aside)
2 Cor 8:1-7
Vs.1-2 Moreover, brethren, we do you to wit of the grace of God. Bestowed the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded unto the riches of their liberality on the churches of Macedonia; how that in a great trial of affliction
- The “grace of God “ Paul was referring to was, as the context makes clear, the grace of giving (the gracious inclination to give) that had fallen upon the Macedonian churches. The riches of God’s grace had been poured out on them, and then they poured out what they had on others (Pappa and C4s water experience)
Characteristics of Grace Giving
Characteristics of Grace Giving
- Poor
- Afflicted
Vs. 3-4 For to their power, I bear record, yea, and beyond their power they were willing of themselves; praying us with much intreaty that we would receive the gift, and take upon us the fellowship of the ministering to the saints.
- Giving
“Giving things instead of ourselves can easily become your religion”
Grace giving is not dictated by ability, has nothing to do with being well off.
It views giving as a privilege and joyously enthusiastic
Vs. 5 And this they did, not as we hoped, but first gave their own selves to the Lord, and unto us by the will of God.
- Self Giving
Grace is first rooted in our response to God
When you know that your life is not your own, neither will you think your possessions are your own. It’s easy to surrender part when you already given the whole.
It won’t do any good to give our possessions to God unless we have given ourselves.
Vs. 6-7 Insomuch that we desired Titus, that as he had begun, so he would also finish in your the same grace also. Therefore, as ye abound in everything, in faith, and utterance, and knowledge, and in all diligence, and in your love to us, see that ye abound in this grace also.
Earlier Paul had encouraged Titus to try to bring the Corinthians to completion/maturity in this area of giving. The Corinthians were a gifted group: many had faith, great speech, knowledge, earnestness and love, but they did not excel in this act of grace-giving. Despite all their good qualities, they were incomplete, and Paul wanted them to grow.
Money is entwined with one’s soul. Some say the average American spends 50 percent of his or her time thinking about money- how to get it, how to spend it.
This response to grace means: GIVE WHAT YOU HAVE. That’s how the Macedonians gave out of their poverty willingly. That’s how we should give out of our affluence