Morning By Morning #300

“You expected much, but see, it turned out to be little.

What you brought home, I blew away. Why?” declares the LORD Almighty.

“Because of my house, which remains a ruin, while each of you is busy with his own house.”

Haggai 1:9

From the pen of Charles Spurgeon:

Uncharitable people scrimp on their donations to church ministries and missionary organizations and then call such savings good economizing. Little do they know, however, they are only impoverishing themselves. Their excuse is that they must care for their own families, while forgetting that to neglect the house of God is the surest way to bring ruin upon their own houses. Our God’s sovereign ways can cause our endeavors to succeed beyond our wildest expectations or they can defeat our plans to our own dismay and confusion. With a simple touch of His hand, God can steer our vessel into a profitable channel or He can run it aground in poverty and bankruptcy. The Scriptures teach us that the Lord enriches the generous but leaves the miserly to discover that withholding their money only leads to poverty.

Over a very wide range of observation, I have noticed that the most generous Christians I have known have always been the happiest and, almost invariably, the most prosperous as well. I have seen generous givers rise to wealth they never would have dreamed of, and I have just as often seen ungenerous misers descend into poverty by the very tightfistedness by which they thought they would rise. Just as people will trust good stewards of wealth with larger and larger sums, so it is quite frequently with the Lord. He gives truckloads to those who give by the bushels, and even when He does not bestow great wealth, the Lord makes a little go further. He also gives a contentment the sanctified heart will experience in proportion to how their tithe has been dedicated to the Lord.

Selfishness will always look first to its own home, but godliness will “seek first [God’s] kingdom and his righteousness” (Matt. 6:33). In the long run, selfishness is loss while godliness is great gain. It requires faith to act toward our God with open hands, but surely He deserves that from us. Even doing all we can is still a very poor acknowledgment of our amazing indebtedness to His goodness.

From the pen of Jim Reimann:

Spurgeon mentions today that some Christians blame their lack of giving on the fact they need to care for their families. Yet Jesus encountered the exact opposite problem. The Jewish leaders of Jesus’ time were refusing to take care of their families, as commanded by God, by saying all of their money was “Corban (that is, a gift devoted to God)” (Mark 7:11). Jesus told them, “You nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down” (Mark 7:13). Most likely the Jews who were twisting God’s Word to justify their lack of honoring their parents with their wealth were not using the savings to honor the Lord either.

The truth is, we are commanded to give to the Lord’s ministry while still honoring and caring for our families. In both areas, an attitude of stinginess is something the Lord will not—and cannot—bless. It has been said we cannot outgive God, but how blessed we would be if we tried!

Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

Matthew 6:33