A Timely Worship is Not When Your're Blessed

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It's so easy to praise God when you're so blessed materially. It's easier to quote verses and preach about thanking God when you're financially well off. But when dry times come and there's no harvest of grapes to make wine with, the fields have yielded zero grain so that no grain offering is possible, there's no shewbread for the priests, and the livestock has died due to famine, what can you offer for worship?

But it's dry times when God waits with interest for our worship. It's when we seem to have nothing that God watches how we sacrifice for him. Sacrifice that cost you nothing isn't worth anything to God, said David once. If you're well off and your sacrifice doesn't hurt you much--though it's awesomely a huge amount of money to those who have nothing--God isn't impressed. It's when you have nothing that God pays attention to what you'd sacrifice for him.

The poor widow's offering is a case in point. We often hear the story but we never get the idea especially come worship time. The story goes like this--the rich gave huge sums in the offering box. The offerings were acceptable to men but Jesus wasn't impressed. However, when a poor widow gave her "very small copper coins," Jesus remarked: "She put in more than what all the rich people had given combined," or something to that effect. And to think that this was a poor widow made the giving seem more impossible, but she did it anyway.

From that, the principle is clear--a timely worship is not when you're materially blessed but when you have a lack of it--even a severe lack of it. But no one's been paying attention. We all want to give from a position of abundance. So we all ask God for huge finances to keep us from any lack, not knowing that we forfeit ourselves of a good opportunity to give. When we're well off, we brag about it and show people how we're so blessed and favored by God!

We don't realize that lack is a blessed opportunity from God. He often works out things to create a temporary financial lack because he wants to bless you with a timely opportunity to honor God with your sacrificial giving. Do you see this? To God, the more the lack, the higher the sacrifice, the higher the faith requirement, so the more God is pleased. Hence, your financial blessedness is really a disadvantage in the Spirit realm. Your offering may be tolerably acceptable but you can never please God the way the poor widow did, unless you give all your finances up!

Remember this vital Kingdom principle on giving: "Out of her poverty, she put in everything." And that means everything! No one can change this truth. Your giving can never catch God's attention unless it follows said principle. No wonder, the poor are more blessed.

"But the brother of humble circumstances is to glory in his high position; and the rich man is to glory in his humiliation," [James 1.9-10]. 

Do you believe this? When you're materially blessed, be aware of your low position in God's Kingdom. This is the best you can do to catch God's attention--realize your "low position." Never brag about your giving or try to set yourself an example of a "giver"--which many Christian "givers" do today--unless you give up all your money and possessions and give to the poor, which I doubt the rich in church would do. Even if you give one million pesos as offering and you still have P50K remaining, don't feel so good about it. You have only given back what God gave you.

I've seen how some rich "givers" controlled church affairs and the pastor, just because they gave huge sums to the church. Some dictated to the pastor and some kicked out the pastor. And they thought they were doing right.

If you're rich and you give just a portion of your wealth, the bible says remember your low or humble position. Just give it and shut your mouth. That's what God wants to see in your heart. But if you're poor, God blessed you with that opportunity because he wants you to do a real sacrifice for him. So do it with cheer in your heart--he loves a cheerful giver!