Tuesday Reflection – July 10, 2018
Watchword Text: Proverbs 11:24.
Author: Bevon White
YouTube Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jmhYx2mWz8&feature=youtu.be
Greetings friends,
One of the most difficult tasks for any Church board is to get the members to a point where their giving comfortably covers the expenses of the congregation. The ideal situation is for the congregation to receive a little more each week, than its expenses demand. That would leave something for mission and outreach, for maintenance and expansion, and for savings. For most Churches however, the reality is that they struggle financially and barely cover their expenses, having to do extensive fund raising for budget shortfall and other projects. This is so because many congregations depend only on the giving of their members to meet their financial needs. Today’s Watchword offers a cause and remedy for financial problems in the church and in the lives of God’s people. Some give freely, yet grow all the richer; others withhold what is due, and only suffer want. Proverbs 11:24.
I remember years ago teaching a congregation board the principles of tithing and every member decided that this would be the way of their congregation. They share this with the congregation who also agreed. One month later, one brother stood in church and testified of the financial difference that tithing had already begun to make in his life. He stated ‘I have never handled so much money in my life. The more I give to God, the more I receive’. This, friends, is the principle of the proverb. A person can discreetly spend what they have on church work, charitable organizations and helping people in need, only to realize that they are richer for it financially and spiritually. At the same time others may keep for themselves what God has been blessing them with, only to lose it anyway. Personal investments go bad, bonds and stocks fail, banks fold under and all you have invested goes with them. When we give unto the Lord however, it becomes a gift with certain and unlimited returns. 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.” Luke 6:38
But it is does not finish there. The other side of the coin is that a person can become so careful a spender of their money that they end up the poorer for it. When we are unjust in repaying our debts, when we withhold more than our due share of profits, when we are stingy in providing for our homes and families, when we refuse to give to the needy and to meet our financial obligations to the church, when saving wealth becomes more important to us than saving our lives through proper medical care, we are truly setting ourselves up to be poor, to lose more than we have saved. When we live like this, expect bad credit to haunt us, expect bad health to drain us and expect poor relationships to strip us of the company of family and friends. In Haggai 1:6 – 9 God challenges Israel to pay more attention to the temple and they in turn would fare better. You have sown much, and harvested little. You eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but you never have your fill. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm. And he who earns wages does so to put them into a bag with holes. “Thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways. Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house, that I may take pleasure in it and that I may be glorified, says the Lord. You looked for much, and behold, it came to little. And when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why? declares the Lord of hosts. Because of my house that lies in ruins, while each of you busies himself with his own house.
Today I challenge us to be faithful and true in our giving to God and God will in turn faithfully reward our effort, so we will be able to do even more. This is what I call the cycle of blessing. May God add to you even as you add to His church and to those around you. Amen.
Tuesday Reflection – Proverbs 11_24
Bevon White