Song: Passion

Artist: Hillsong Y & F

We’ve been sitting all week with the call of Christian discipleship to be generous. Today, we’re back in Proverbs 3.

Honor the Lord with your wealth and with the best part of everything you produce. Then he will fill your barns with grain, and your vats will overflow with good wine.

Proverbs 3:9-10

Three somewhat unrelated observations:

Honor

The passage doesn’t say “Give…” It says, “Honor the Lord…” And how do we do that? With our wealth – with our material possessions. God is honored (or dishonored) by how we use our material possessions. What we do with our “stuff” says something about what we think of God.

Trust

Just before today’s reading we find this familiar passage: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will…” I like these verses. They comfort me. But today, it occurs to me that what I do with material possessions says a lot about how much I actually believe them. Giving (honoring the Lord with my wealth) is a remarkably tangible and physical way for me to walk out “trust in the Lord.”

& Barn Doors

This passage is rooted in Deuteronomy, one of the first books of the Bible. There, as here, God lays out His intended patterns for life and the consequences of following (or ignoring!) them.

This bit in Proverbs about giving God the best parts of everything we produce is rooted in Deuteronomy 26 and the command to tithe. And Deuteronomy 26 begins with an interesting little phrase.

Immediately before the command to give “firstfruits/the best part” (which Proverbs 3 picks up), we read this:

“When you enter the land God is giving you…”

See that? God is giving you…now, you give.

And, as this Proverb reveals, when we give, we create more space in our lives for God’s generosity. When we empty our barn for others…God fills it with more.

So we give. It honors God. It expresses trust. And it opens the barn doors – yours…and His!

Beyond…Challenging?

Proverbs 3:27–Do not withhold good from those who deserve it when it’s in your power to help them.

A different version reads this way: “Do not abstain to do well to the needy.”

Quite a statement.

Proverbs 3:28 goes on and states:  If you can help your neighbor now, don’t say, “Come back tomorrow, and then I’ll help you.”

1 John 3:17-18– If someone has enough money to live well and sees a brother or sister in need but shows no compassion—how can God’s love be in that person?

Dear children, let’s not merely say that we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions.

How do we do this?  We need to keep ourselves open to the Holy Spirit prompting and talking to us.  And then simply obey.

I recently had the opportunity to do the K-3rd-grade chapel at Maranatha.  At the end, they had an offering for an orphanage in another country. It was so neat to see these kids go up and put money in the offering!  They were giving, and putting to action what is said in Proverbs 3:27.

They were putting feet to their faith.  Sure, some of them were probably putting in some money from mom and dad.  That doesn’t change it for me.  They were gladly giving to others who had a need.  They were giving what they had the power to give.

Childlike obedience. Childlike faith.

Have you ever wanted to give something, but waited to give something?  Or told God you will give once you have enough?  That “enough” never comes.  It’s like waiting to have kids until you can afford it.  That is one elusive carrot.

I came across this statement:

Procrastination is especially fatal to the giving “impulse”.

If we give ourselves time we can come up with many reasons why NOT to give.  It would be so awesome to have the mindset of why TO give.

As I recounted Sunday, my wife’s parents were and are givers.  They model a life of “not withholding good to those who deserve it.”  And they are blessed.

We don’t have to be rich see an opportunity arise to do good to those less fortunate.

The children at the Chapel service were not rich.  They gave what they could when they could.

In reading these verses and the previous devotions this week it is quite a challenge to my/our giving habits.

We should take joy and pleasure in giving to others.  If we care only about ourselves, exclusive of others, we have placed our focus in the wrong place.  We are encouraged in these verses to give to those who have need, when they need it, and not to wait.

Basically, this is enforcing what the Bible tells us in that we are but stewards of what God has given us.

Then when I see a need I am more willing to give.  I understand that I am just a steward of what He has blessed me with.

If we are not careful, our mindset begins to echo a quote I came across from Tim Keller: A lack of generosity refuses to acknowledge that your assets are not really yours, but God’s.

Giving puts action to our faith.

Continue praying this week about what God would have you to give–and where!

Song: To My Knees

Artist: Hillsong Young & Free

6 “For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed. 7 From the days of your fathers you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts. But you say, ‘How shall we return?’ 8 Will man rob God? Yet you are robbing me. But you say, ‘How have we robbed you?’ In your tithes and contributions. 9 You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me, the whole nation of you. 10 Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need. 11 I will rebuke the devourer for you, so that it will not destroy the fruits of your soil, and your vine in the field shall not fail to bear, says the Lord of hosts. 12 Then all nations will call you blessed, for you will be a land of delight, says the Lord of hosts.

Malachi 3:6-12

Head, Shoulders, Knees, & Toes

Malachi’s a tough read. The people of God – chosen and loved by Him – are in a bad way. This moment in the history of their relationship with God is less outright idolatry, and more just dead orthodoxy. They are, in a sense, just going through the motions.

It’s like when I’m playing with my daughters. Maybe we’re reading a book. Maybe we’re having a tea party. Maybe we’re singing “Head, Shoulders, Knees & Toes.” They always know when my heart’s not in it. Maybe I’m less animated. Maybe I push the tempo a little, you know, so we can speed to the end. Maybe I skip a verse. They’re only three, but they’ve got a remarkably keen sense for the difference between the real thing…and dead orthodoxy. And they always want the former, and never let me get away with the latter.

And that’s exactly the state of things with the people of God in Malachi. Their hearts aren’t in it. Any of it. Worship (Mal 1). Marriage (ch 2). Tithing (Mal 3). None of it. All ways God had given them to express their distinctiveness as His people – to express their response to His love in obedience – and they’ve all devolved into empty formalism. It’s all head, shoulders, knees, and toes…but no heart.

…and Hearts

It’s a striking contrast to the passage we read yesterday. Listen to Paul’s description of the people of God in 2 Corinthians 8:2-3 –

“for in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. For they gave according to their means, as I can testify, and beyond their means, of their own accord…”

Look what happens when the heart is in it. When the heart is in it, affliction, extreme poverty, and insufficient means are no match for generosity!

But when it’s all head, shoulders, knees and toes? Well, we’re back to Malachi. Drought (v 10), pestilence, crop failure (v 11) – they’re “afflictions” that become excuses for negligence. For selfishness. For ignoring the call to generosity. For just going through the motions.

My invitation to you today? Engage your heart.

Remember Malachi 1:1 –

“I have loved you,” says the Lord.

Remember 2 Corinthians 8:9 –

“For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.”

Head, shoulders, knees, and toes…and hearts.

Engage your heart. Remember His love for you. And here’s my hunch. Reflecting on His generosity? It’s going to change how you engage with this week’s prayer: God, what are you asking me to give?