Luke 6: 38
Give, and it will be given to you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, they will pour into your lap. For by your standard of measure it will be measure to you in return.
I have been thinking about what we might call the Isaac Principle which we beheld earlier in the week. In the time of famine, Isaac sowed and in that same year he reaped a hundredfold (Genesis 26: 1, 12). One of the things we have learned about times of economic slumps is that churches and ministries suffer.
The wrongness of that fact bowled me over this week. I saw something I had not seen before. It tells me that the church isn’t living by Biblical principles. Jesus said, “Give, and it will be given to you.” Therefore, if we are in an economic downturn then we should not withhold our giving, we should increase it. When the famine was on, Isaac sowed. He didn’t withhold his seed or eat it for dinner. This is what the Bible teaches us. And we see it in the Old Testament and the New as well as from the mouth of Jesus. I just don’t think we can get more authoritative than that. So, the question is, “Why do people cut back on their giving in the lean times?”
The only answer I can come up with is that we are responding in fear rather than faith. Face it, the faith walk isn’t always easy but then, being broke in attitude and pocketbook is no cake walk either. I can look back over my lifetime and see the difference God’s truths have made. I remember having no money or having to wait for the next paycheck to buy tires for the car. It was no fun. Now you couldn’t convince me not to tithe. Just wished I had started it earlier. Now I wonder what God will show me next. Twenty years from now what will I wish I had learned earlier? I think it might be that I would learn how to trust God bigger than I do now. Maybe I will say, “I wish I had held God to His word and believed He would come through for me.”
We are each on this journey; learning and growing in the Lord. We just need to keep taking the next step. If you have not yet become a giver, do it today. Stop robbing yourself of God’s bounty. Jesus didn’t tell us to give because he needs something. He is trying to get resources into our hands. By our measure of giving, Jesus said, it will be given to us. How would you describe your giving? Is that the word that you want describing what comes in to you? Don’t give in to fear. Have the courage of heart to sow. Then watch your harvest increase.
