Its About Your Spirit, Not Your Gift

Since 2005, Americans have been spending more than they have been saving for the first time in history. What are we buying?

You name it...we have been eating out and drinking out more with the growth of Starbucks and other specialty coffee stores, buying big screen TV’s, borrowing more and building bigger houses, putting more on credit cards, spending more on lotteries, movies, sporting events, phones, and video games. Bankrupties and foreclosures are up! And Americans are putting back less and less for retirement and giving less to charity and churches. Indeed, as a nation we are in a drunken stupor of spending.

Question: Do you think it is God's will that His followers (born-again Christians) waste their resources like people who do not follow after Christ? Does God have a better plan for His people...a better program with a better outcome?

The essence of God's plan is DEPENDENCE UPON HIM, not our job, or our investments, or stocks, inheritances, etc. GOD WANTS YOU AND I TO GET TO THE PLACE WHERE WE GIVE HIM TOTAL CONTROL EVERYTHING WE OWN EVERYDAY.

In Mark 12:38-41, Jesus one day while teaching says, "Watch out for the religion scholars. They love to walk around in academic gowns, preening in the radiance of public flattery, basking in prominent positions, sitting at the head table at every church function. And all the time they are exploiting the weak and helpless. The longer their prayers, the worse they get. But they'll pay for it in the end. And sitting down opposite the treasury, Jesus watched how the people threw copper coins into the treasury."[THE MESSAGE]

And then Jesus said, "And there came a certain poor widow, and she threw in two mites, which make a farthing." [Mark 12:42, KJV]

I find it interesting here that we see Christ observing all men and all things: all our actions are before his eyes, what we do in public and what we do in private are equally known unto him. He observes the state and situation we are in: his eye was upon the abundance of the rich who had given much; and he was well acquainted with the poverty and desolate state of the widow who had given her all, though that was but little in itself. What an awful thought for the rich!

If I can, let me point out a few things:
1. “God sees every penny I possess, and constantly observes how I spend it.”
2. Christ sees all the motives which lead men to perform their respective actions; and the different motives which lead them to perform the same action: he knows whether they act through vanity, self-love, interest, ambition, hypocrisy, or whether through love, charity, zeal for his glory, and a hearty desire to please him.
3. He observes the circumstances which accompany our actions; whether we act with care or negligence, with a ready mind or with reluctance.
4. He observes the judgment which we form of that which we do in his name; whether we esteem ourselves more on account of what we have done, speak of it to others, dwell on our labors, sufferings, expenses, success, etc., or whether we humble ourselves because we have done so little good, and even that little in so imperfect a way. And many rich ones threw in much.

Can we pose a pointed question or two to ourselves as followers of Christ? Have we too become like the world irresponsible and self-centered with our possessions? When we consider our actions, our motives, our circumstances, our individual indulgences; what would Christ think as he looks at our heart as we give our offerings to Him?

Tomorrow, we will see what Christ saw in a little widow lady as she put her offering into the church treasury. Not what she gave, but the spirit of which she gave with.