Finishing up my story
February 15, 2007
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I gave away over $5,000.00 at church last weekend. I’m really sorry if you missed it. I was trying to illustrate how God is the One who actually provides the seed money for us. (See II Corinthians 9:6-11)
So I randomly picked someone from the congregation and gave them ten ONE DOLLAR bills and asked them, “If I gave this to you, would you be willing to put ONE dollar in the offering plate?”
I wanted to prove that if you KNEW that God was the One who gave you your resources, it would be EASY to tithe.
Then I called another parishioner forward and gave them ten TEN DOLLAR bills and asked them, “If I gave this to you, would you be willing to give ONE ten dollar bill back to God?”
Next, I called someone forward and was going to hand out ten ONE HUNDRED dollar bills (for those of you who are not very good at math, that is $1,000.00 cash). At this point in the sermon, I had everyone’s attention. I then asked, “If I gave this to you, would you be willing to give ONE one hundred dollar bill from this one thousand dollars back to God?” Everyone answered YES to this question.
Then I asked each recipient of the $1000.00, “Before I give you this $1,000.00, I want to ask you, do you ALREADY TITHE? Do you currently give God a tithe of all you have?” One lady that was called up to receive the $1,000.00 responded, “No, but I’m willing to start.”
It was VERY difficult for me, but I then took the thousand dollars away from her and gave it to a young man named Dustin, who had acknowledged that he was, in fact, a tither. I felt sooooooooo
bad taking the thousand dollars away from that lady, but if I was going to give a thousand dollars to someone, I wanted to make sure they were already a tither…
After church, Dustin came into my office and told me that he was having some difficult times and that he had literally put his LAST five dollars into buying gas so that he could drive to church. He then told me that before I started handing out the money, that if for SOME STRANGE REASON, I picked him out of the crowd, and if I were to give him any money, he promised the Lord that he would give 50% back to the Lord.
So in my office, he counted out FIVE ONE HUNDRED dollar bills and slid them across my desk. He then took the five remaining one hundred dollar bills, held them up, and told me that I had no idea how much this was going to make a difference in his life.
He was telling me this story with tears running down his face, and as he was talking, I was reminded of the many times that God has shown me His faithfulness. I pray that through our study of the ABC’s of financial success, each of us will learn that it is impossible to out-give God.
Why not grab your Bible, and read through II Corinthians 9:6-11 again?
Maranatha!!!
