GIVING -- Stewardship

"God loves cheerful givers"

February 16 -- Read 2 Corinthians 9:1-15

Giving is a personal thing. Giving of money, time, and talents is between you and God. But sacrificial, hilarious giving is wonderful when we come to the realization that 1) God owns everything, 2) God doesn't need our money but we need to give it, 3) you are no fool to give what you cannot keep to save what you cannot lose, and 4) giving is a thank you note to God for all you have been given. In 1992 God blessed us with our ability to sacrificially give what I wasn't making. Thank God for changed priorities.

• Whatever you have received more than others in health, talents, abilities, success, a pleasant childhood, or in harmonious conditions of homelife, all this you must take to yourself as a matter of course. In gratitude for your good fortune, render some sacrifice of your own life for another life.
  Albert Schweitzer
  
  
• Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for the Lord loves a cheerful giver.
  2 CORINTHIANS 9:7
  
  
• French fries aren't ours. They are a gift from God. Sight is a gift from God. Hearing is a gift from God. The ability to reason and think is a gift from God. The ability to have a friend and maintain a friendship is a gift from God. Talents, skills, and abilities are gifts. Time is a gift from God. You and I have been seduced by our secular, humanistic culture, into believing that everything we have is ours. It's not. Tom Tewell
  
  
• Honor the Lord with your wealth, with the first fruits of all your crops, then your barns will be filled to overflowing and your vats will brim over with new wine. PROVERBS 3:9-10
  
  
• If you don't take, you deny the other person the pleasure of giving.

Questions...

1. Make giving fun. Notice the face of those who give gifts. Are they not happier than those who receive?

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