BIBLICAL BRIEFS 43
The Word clearly spells it out in 2 Tim. 2: 4 – “No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier.” If God calls you to work for Him, He will also provide for your daily livelihood, because you are in His service. But that provision does not drop from the skies, therefore God has strong guidelines regarding the responsibility of us as believers to be open-handed toward those who serve the Word unto us. In fact, “God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Cor. 9: 7). Ponder on this! Your and my wilfulness not to make any financial contribution, tempt God. Render unto God the things that are God’s (Luk. 20: 22-25). This wilful attitude to withold finances from the work of God also causes the Body to stumble. BUT, as with everything in the gospel, God ALWAYS works with choice, never ever with compulsion. God does not need your money nor your goods – it is all about an attitude that He wants to stir up in the Body of Christ. Unfortunately, there are preachers and spiritual workers who “think that godliness is a way to make a profit. But as for you, O man of God, flee from all these things …” (1Tim. 6: 5, 11). However, it is a standing principle of God: “whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully”(2 Cor. 9: 6). This has already been a law in the Old Testament: “Honour the LORD from your wealth and from the first of all your produce; So your barns will be filled with plenty and your vats will overflow with new wine.”(Pro. 3: 9-10). Some translations refer to the latter part as “new wine”, which is of utmost importance to the New Testament believer to receive (Isa. 65: 8). A core verse in this regard is the promise of Jesus in Luk. 6:38(NJB): “Give, and there will be gifts for you: a full measure, pressed down, shaken together, and overflowing, will be poured into your lap; because the standard you use will be the standard used for you.” To give, requires thus inevitably a particular attitude, as portrayed in His own words in Luk. 12:33: “Get yourselves purses that do not wear out, treasure that will not fail you, in heaven where no thief can reach it and no moth destroy it.”
Dr. Tom Gouws
