Hosanna Restoration Church

Giving is what God does better than anyone else. It is also at the top of His list of things that we need to learn. Why? Because God gives seed to sowers! He has an abundance of seed and He is looking for people who will know how to use it.

Remember, Jesus said that if we do not understand the principles of sowing and reaping we would not understand how His kingdom works. We all understand the idea of going to a store and paying for what we want. We would not want to just give them money and then not receive the merchandise. Nor does a reasonable person expect the store to give us the merchandise without us paying for it. We take a specific amount of money and expect a specific thing in return for it.

So what does this have to do with giving? Well, if we will honor a store owner by doing what he says and expect him to in turn give us what we expect, shouldn’t we treat God with at least as much respect? Shouldn’t we honor His word enough to put it into practice?

Since He says that He loves a cheerful giver, we really must learn to do what God loves. We need to understand His plan for giving. He started out giving and He has never stopped. He gave us a world to live in. He gave us everything we could ever need in order to live. He gave the sun, the moon, and the stars and a list too long to mention. Ultimately, He gave His own Son. When Jesus came, He came giving. He then told us that we should give! He added that when we give, it would be given back to us. Notice that it was not going to come back in the same measure that it was given. No it was going be returned packed and overflowing.

It is a lot easier to be a cheerful giver when we understand this. It sounds very noble to declare that we don’t give in order to get things back, but isn’t it an insult if we refuse to take what is offered to us? If God wants to multiply His seed, how is He going to do it if no one will follow His plan? He gave Jesus so that Jesus would be the first fruit. What if no one would receive Him? How would He lead many sons to glory? If God tells us to prove His Word by giving and seeing if He won’t pour out more than we can contain, who are we to say we do not want to work with Him on that.

Just like everything else, once we see something work, we have more confidence in it. God wants us to see how giving works. The cycle of giving is not complete until something is received. We can do things God’s way, or we can do them our own way. Until we are convinced that God’s way is best we will probably stick with our own way. As long as we do that, we will never enjoy the kingdom of God the way He planned.