Flowing Over With Abundance
Don’t hold back—give freely, and you’ll have plenty poured back into your lap—a good measure, pressed down, shaken together, brimming over. You’ll receive in the same measure you give. Luke 6:38 (The Voice, VOICE)
It can be tempting to withhold our finances and keep it all for our own needs and desires. After all, we have seen so many tricksters who lie and deceive to scam us out of our hard-earned money, including Christian ministers. So, why should we give? There is one huge reason- love.
Love is giving to others. It is action motivated by a desire for others to be blessed. Everything we do should be based on love. We don’t give just to get something in return, although it is promised to us. We give simply to give. Sometimes we may find that the person we gave to was a liar or a fraud, but that should not prevent us from continuing to bless others. If we gave with a right heart, God will still bless us for giving.
God knows that people can be untruthful. He can tell us when we are planning to bless someone that we should not. The problem is that we often do not consult Him to see if we should do something, including giving. Before we donate to a person or organization, we should pray about it. The Holy Spirit will let us know in our spirits if we should go ahead and do it. He’ll give you a sense in your spirit if something isn’t right- some call it a check in your spirit. The Lord has given each of us the gift of discerning of spirits, and we can know if something is of God or not.
And I want to be clear- if you are struggling about whether to tithe and give at all- you can stop the struggle. The Bible speaks of tithing both before, during, and after the Law, so we can’t use that as an excuse not to tithe. And the verse above says to give freely. It does not say you might want to give freely. No, instead it speaks in the form of a command, instructing us to give. If we love God more than we love money, we’ll have no problem with tithing and giving.
When we give, we get. It is the law of sowing and reaping in action. As a seed is planted and brings forth a harvest of many more seeds, the same happens when we sow our finances, time, etc. We get back an overflow of what we gave. And the amount we reap is in direct correlation with how much we sow. If a farmer sows just one kernel of wheat, he’ll harvest just one shaft of wheat. When we are generous, we get a generous return.
One phrase I don’t really care for is “give until it hurts.” Giving done from the heart with the right attitude never hurts. It is a blessing to us, a blessing to those to whom we give, and we’ll benefit from an overflow of abundance as a result!
