Learning To Give

Years ago our church was struggling financially.  We, as a family were barely making it.  My husband began teaching the principles of faith giving. . .reaping what you sow.  Even as a farmer puts the seed into the ground, nurtures and cultivates it, then reaps the harvest.  Our giving beyond the tithe should be prayed about, agreed upon, and then committed to God for the result.

Dr. Jack Hyles' Pastor's School was scheduled for March and I wanted to go with my husband.  $20 registration per person was required whether attending only one session or all of them.  We did not have the twenty dollars for me, so Tom had just decided to forego the school.

Remembering all of his teaching on planting and reaping, I thought to myself, "I'll see if this really works."  I need twenty dollars, meaning ten percent would be two dollars.  Known only to God, I really scrimped that week and held back the two dollars from the grocery money.  On Sunday I put it in the offering, and waited with anticipation to see how God would get the twenty dollars to me.

Nothing happened.  I was highly disappointed, and a little disillusioned.  Time came for the conference and there was no money.  Tom said, "Come on, let's go.  The Lord will work this out somehow."

Tom dropped me off at the church lobby and he went to park the car.  I saw and greeted many preacher friends while waiting for him to come in.  Suddenly, a preacher friend who had not seen in years came over to me and said, "Jeanette, this is funny, but the Lord just told me to give this to you."  Need I tell you what he put into my hand?  A twenty dollar bill.

Since that time I no longer miserly count out ten percent of our income.  I tend to scrape together more and more "seed" to plant, knowing the God of the harvest will return it, some forty, some sixty, and some hundred fold.

Not only have received money, but God adds those things that money can't buy, health, happiness, and love in abundance.  I learned first hand not to fear to put God's promises to the test.

 

 

Thank God for Paying Taxes!

April is tax time!  I think that my husband hates this time of the year like no other.  Not just because he doesn't enjoy paying for some of the despicable things that our government uses our tax money, but also because of the minute detailing of all monies.  The use of the car, where driven, for what, how many miles; The use of the airplane, who ate in your home, how many trips to the dentist, the doctor, and so forth.  Then at the end come the "bomb",  how much we are going to have to pay.

Jesus paid taxes.  He instructed Peter to get money from the mouth of a fish to pay their taxes.  I thought the Lord Might need to do that again for us.  Strange as it may seem, tax time has been a time of thanksgiving for me this year.

After our honeymoon my husband went into evangelism.  This means no guaranteed income whatsoever.  As a young, unknown evangelist just getting started, meetings were few and we were barely surviving financially and did not even make enough money to pay income taxes.  Later, he became the first full-time pastor of a 103 year-old church.  The salary was very small and for several years we did not earn enough to pay taxes.

From our wedding day we were certain about one thing:  God will honor those who honor Him, and this includes money.  So one tenth of all we received went back to the Lord.  God blessed us financially (as He had promised) and we were able to give more to Him.  No longer only ten percent, but then fifteen, then twenty, then more.  God just keeps returning to us abundantly above all that we could ask or think.  (Ephesians 3:20).

 

When our tax man called and told us how much we had to pay this year I was staggered.  It had never been so much.  Then I wondered why I should be upset.  This is the evidence of the blessing of God on our lives.  I feel like Jacob in Genesis 32:10, when he said, "with my staff I crossed over and now I am become two bands."  From our meager beginning God kept His Word and we are blessed.

"In everything give thanks. . .for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus. . ."  1st Thessalonians 5:18a..