Thursday, December 18, 2008

Blessings

Deuteronomy 28:2 All these blessings will come upon you and accompany you if you obey the LORD your God:


God is amazing! It's a massive understatement. What amazes me soo much is that He's the God of the Universe at the same time He's the God of my next breath. I'm reminded over and over that God is sovereign and that His greatest desire is to pour out his blessings on His children. I always enjoy the Christmas season and shopping for gifts for others, but even more so, I enjoy the giving. Now I'll be frank...I despise obligatory giving. You know when a gift is obligatory when your first thought is "what the????" or "who can I regift this too next year because I sure and Hades don't have any use for this junk". That that aside, I love giving to people who have needs that they didn't know how they would be filled. Beyond that, God wants to use us to do just that. During this holiday season in particular, God has opened up his flood gates of blessings to us...but you want to know the interesting part....each time it has been right after we've obeyed him by giving to others. We committed X dollars to this person in need...within a week we receive a financial gift (unexpected) worth 3x that. A week later we receive another unexpected financial "gift" and we turn around and give it to a family member in need...the very next day we received 15x that gift out of the blue....talk about knocking you on your knees to thank God for His many blessings!!!

Here's what hit home the most for me. I've always been a tither. Tither Paul. I'm not saying that to toot my own horn because it was just something I was taught to do. 10% gross of the top goes to God and you budget on the rest. I'm an excellent tither...but I'm not a good giver. God spoke to me in ways that I could understand and told me that He expected more of me. He desires my tithe out of obedience and my offerings out of Love. WHAT? <---that's what the 4 year old in me yelled back. I'm now becoming the kind of giver I think God wants me to be. I'll tithe because it is the least I should do...and I'll give offerings over that to Him because He deserves all that I have to offer. In my case just tithing is not being obedient, giving above and beyond is....and God has blessed that and poured out more and more blessings on us....Amazing....simply Amazing!

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