It wasn’t till we started attending this local church that our family started to give regularly. Now, I’ve been a believer in Christ since I was 7 (read my page “My 7th Birthday”), so I’ve heard a few sermons about money.
None of them grabbed me; however, we started giving regularly when we started at our local church nearly 15 years ago. We giving for the wrong reason, though. Duty. Yet, having the love of money, little or great, is bad news; so Jesus knew what He was talking about when He said, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God’s (Mark 10:25).
However, our worries wouldn’t go away as we wanted to have the experience of being free from financial burdens in order to give to the church more freely. Worry & stress consumed our hearts each week as we would often give what we had left over 52 weeks out of the year. Dreams of hitting the lottery (not that we played it regularly) or getting some windfall of money never came to be.
Each individually, we gently got schooled by the Lord through His Holy Spirit. We decided to give to the Lord first, then pay our bills, & live off the rest. There have been a couple of times over the last few years that stress & worry about finances have caused us not to trust the Lord almost taking the financial aspect back. But we’re in a financially better position to give what the Lord has chosen to bless us with to over & above our tithe (10%) + support other ministries like Compassion International, Operation Christmas Child, etc…
That’s what happened between Cain & Abel. Cain gave out of his abundance; however, Abel gave to the Lord first (Genesis 4:1-16). Please turn your heart toward giving to the Lord as you have increasing faith in doing so. Then, you can definitely say that you gave with a cheerful heart.
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