Generosity In Love - A Widows Offering to God
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A Widows Offering to God
A Widows Offering to God
When I go to the mall, Costco, Walmart, airport, or other areas of people, I like to people watch. People are fascinating beings. Coming in all shapes, sizes, colors, appearances, and so forth.
It is amazing what you can see and hear if your just stop, watch, and listen. Jesus exposed the perfect illustration of observation while in the compounds of the Temple.
Let’s turn to Luke 21:1-4.
Luke 21:1–4 NASB 2020
Now He looked up and saw the wealthy putting their gifts into the temple treasury. And He saw a poor widow putting in two lepta coins. And He said, “Truly I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all of them; for they all contributed to the offering from their surplus; but she, from her poverty, put in all that she had to live on.”
For Jesus, the value of any tithe or gift is not the amount given, but the cost to the giver; it’s not how much the widow gave, but how much she retained for herself. For example, a lepton was the smallest and least valuable coin in circulation in Judea, worth about six minutes of an average daily wage. Today, it would be worth about 1/8th of a penny.
The rich and powerful gave from what they did not need or want; the widow gave everything from he nothingness. Others gave their chump change while the widow gave her life, “all she had to live on.”
Author W. A. Poovey, in his book, How to Talk to Christians About Money, explains to his fellow brothers and sisters that giving is always a response. The motivation for our giving is that we have received. This doesn’t mean we try to pay God back, for that is an impossibility. It does mean that our giving begins in gratitude.
Gratitude. A fancy thought for something even greater. As Christians, we have the obligation to give God all that we can and it’s not all money! What about how we live? It’s how we walk the walk not just the talk.
Paul’s letter to Corinth speaks volumes.
1 Corinthians 10:23–24 NASB 2020
All things are permitted, but not all things are of benefit. All things are permitted, but not all things build people up. No one is to seek his own advantage,but rather that of his neighbor.
We are not to consider our own egos. No finger pointing towards another, nor judgement that places myself above another.
It’s not a me, myself world; it’s a them, those others world.
Christianity is washing another’s dirty, smelly, raggedy feet time and time again. Are we not too look out for the poor, the widow, and the orphan, the sick, destitute. That alcoholic or drug addict who has hit the bottom. The family unit that has no money to buy food for their children.
Or what about those less fortunate that have been taken into sex slavery, or those countries that are so poor the daughters willingly prostitute themselves to make an earning to send in support back home. It is no wonder the southern border is heavily crowded with people wanting the better life in the big United States. Only if they knew the real truth.
Or that child that lives in fear of those who are supposed to protect them from hurting and suffering done by others or themselves.
We are to set for ourselves a different and higher standard. A Standard of love for our neighbors.
1 John 3:17–18 NASB 2020
But whoever has worldly goods and sees his brother or sister in need, and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God remain in him? Little children, let’s not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth.
(Tell story of brother taking drugs with youngest daughter in the house.)
I believe families still sacrifice, unknowingly I pray, their children to the false god Moab and Baal. They may not be burning them alive as a sacrifice, but they are inflicting much greater suffering than death. They are leading their children toward other spiritual dieties through television, movies, books, music, and gaming.
We, right here and now, need to be vigilant of false spiritual teachings as John writes, to his disciples in Rome, about those prophets of cultic, pagan beliefs wrapped in a Christian costume.
1 John 4:1–3 NASB 2020
Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God; and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; this is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming, and now it is already in the world.
Even still, while we must be careful not to let the adversary and its demons to enter our assembly. We also need to be careful what projection we demonstrate through our personal habits and lifestyle.
What daily tithe and offerings do we provide God so He can use what we have, to further His love in this darkened community. It is not the offering itself that is important, it is the offerors cost of one’s heart that counts.
1 Corinthians 10:31–33 NASB 2020
Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all things for the glory of God. Do not offend Jews or Greeks, or the church of God; just as I also please everyone in all things, not seeking my own benefit but the benefit of the many, so that they may be saved.
As David writes about his poetic love and reliance upon the one true God in Psalms 71.
In You, Lord, I have taken refuge; Let me never be put to shame. In Your righteousness rescue me and save me; Extend Your ear to me and help me. Be to me a rock of dwelling to which I may continually come; You have given the commandment to save me, For You are my rock and my fortress. Save me, my God, from the hand of the wicked, From the grasp of the wrongdoer and the ruthless, For You are my hope; Lord God, You are my confidence from my youth. I have leaned on you since my birth; You are He who took me from my mother’s womb; My praise is continually of You.
May the God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob, blessed be He, continue to melt our hearts for those hurting. For they are seeking that one thing to fill their hearts with joy. May our light shine so they may come and find freedom in this life.