Intro:
Hi, this is Dorette Schaal with an Encouraging Word for your day. This month celebrates seven years for me doing dailyeword as a radio show. We continue airing and publishing dailyeword, every day of the week, throughout the year. Your dailyeword keeps undergoing changes to make it better for you. It seems I was blogging before blogging was cool, starting way back in 2001 I was writing a weekly devotional for adults and kids! In addition to being on the radio at KAGF at 105.5, you can read daily words of encouragement on our agf.org website, which links to my blog, dailyeword.com. I would be delighted if you invite your friends about listen to or read my blog. And if you like what I do, please let me know! You can find me on twitter, and Facebook at Encouraging Word. Here is todays dailyeword as we continue talking about growing spiritually, working it out, day by day.
When it comes to generous living, giving of actual money is a very important element. God set up the system so that we live under the umbrella of blessing when we give back to him from what he has given us. It is called the law of sowing and reaping, or the principle of the farm, or the seed. What you sow will grow! As Christians, who have the ability to work, love calls us to invest our energies into making money so that we can provide for the needs of our families, and have more than enough to give away. How do you determine what to give away? The Bible makes it very clear that the tithe, or 10% belongs to God. He gets the cream off the top, and we should order our lives to give that first. Our expenditures should never exceed our income, after we have given our tithe and offerings, and put away a percentage for saving for the future. That is not common thinking in our world. Many people live paycheck to paycheck, and then put on credit cards whatever extra they need. That is part of the reason the world is in the financial mess it is today. As Christians, let’s be good stewards. Let’s give God what is His, and use, save and invest the rest wisely. If we want the ability to be generous with our money, we must be good stewards! We must make decisions based on Godly priorities.
When it comes to actually making a decision of where to sow your offering (remember the tithe goes to the storehouse – so 10% goes to your church- the offering is above the tithe), here are some simple criteria. Because there are so many good causes you can give to, think big picture. Here are two really good questions to ask. 1) Is the organization I am giving to Christian or based on Christian principles? 2) Do they use any of the money I give to support things I don’t believe in? When we answer these questions we can give generously to those who really will benefit from our gifts. We can increase in our generosity this year as we continue to grow spiritually!