You have likely heard it at a birthday gathering or around the Christmas tree: “I can’t wait for you to open my gift for you — I just love giving presents!” The speaker might even invoke the saying of Christ, “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35). And while that verse […]
Read More It is more blessed to give than receive…In 2 Corinthians 8-9, the apostle Paul provides a number of principles about financial giving that honor the Lord. We are typically shy when talking about giving and the need for giving, but Paul wasn’t. From these two chapters, we have at least a dozen principles that should guide our giving: Give as an example […]
Read More Principles of givingMatel Dawson, Jr. is an ordinary man who accomplished something extraordinary. At 76, he still worked for Ford Motor Company — the company that hired him out of high school — operating a forklift. It is unusual to work for one company for more than 57 years. Yet even more remarkably, over six years beginning […]
Read More A giving heartSome helpful articles seen recently: John Newton, writing his troubled friend William Cowper, notes the hardness of the Christian life — and the grace of Christ: “For every day shows us some new thing in the heart, or some new turn in the management of the war against us which we were not aware of; […]
Read More Grab bagA preacher went to visit a farmer and during the course of that visit asked him, “If you had $200 would you give $100 to the Lord?” “I would, preacher.” “If you had two cows, would you give one to the Lord?” “Yes, I believe I would.” “If you had two pigs, would you give […]
Read More Principles of givingA letter to Dear Abby a number of years ago reveals the heart of what many believe about giving: Is it considered proper to make change from the offering plate when it’s passed at church? A member of our family says it’s not OK. I say, it’s better than not putting anything in. Your opinion […]
Read More Sunday Leftovers (8/1/10)In 1874 Francis Ridley Havergal wrote the hymn “Take My Life and Let It Be” and sent it to a friend and essentially forgot about — until she saw it in a magazine four years later. She read it again for the first time in four years and was caught by the stanza, “take my […]
Read More Determined to giveThis morning as part of our Bible reading, we read 2 Corinthians 8-9 — the account of the sacrificial and gracious giving of the Philippians and the corresponding exhortations by Paul to the Corinthians to cultivate similar habits of grace giving. One writer has counted at least 16 principles of giving in these chapters. Let […]
Read More The grace of givingCharles H. Spurgeon, Counsel for Christian Workers: Christ’s servants delight to give so much as to be thought wasteful, for they feel that when they have in the judgment of others done extravagantly for Christ, they have but begun to show their heart’s love for His dear name.
Read More Today’s Quote (9/22/08)
Words of Grace 