Giving - a positive step to understanding money

Learning to give.
Many people spend much of their lives trying to hold on to their hard earned money. But I have found that no matter how hard you try and hold onto money ut seems to be able to slip through your fingers just when you weren't watching.
In the Good News Bible the word ‘give’ is mentioned on 1,110 occasions. The word is used in 37 out of 38 books in the Old Testament and 26 out of 28 books in the New Testament. The only books where the word is not mentioned are Obadiah, 2 Peter and 3 John. The whole foundation of Christianity is built on us receiving the free gift of eternal life. Church organisations are built on a paradigm of giving and receiving which means that a prerequisite for wealth creation is an ability to give.

“ People probably ask me more questions about tithes and offerings than about any other biblical subject. Sadly, the subject often comes up when I’m counselling with a couple who are hopelessly in debt.
I ask, Are you tithing?
They look at me like I have just thrown a box of snakes at their feet and respond, No , how can we tithe? We can’t even pay the bills!” Robert W Katz

Read Malachi 3: 6 - 10
This passage of scripture challenges us to get a correct order in how we deal with our finances. It is so easy to think that we need to sustain ourselves first but God asks us to think about Him first by learning to give to Him. As we learnt in the first study, if we spend all of our time worrying about ourselves then our perspective and outlook is incorrect. First step is to learn to give back to the source of all wealth creation rather than having a paradigm of ‘making sure I’m OK’ first.

Luke 6:38 “Give to others, and God will give to you. Indeed, you will receive a full measure, a generous helping, poured into your hands---all that you can hold. The measure you use for others is the one that God will use for you."

How authentic is your desire to give rather than receive? Can you think of examples in your own life when you know that God has given to you financially?

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