Preacher: Dr. ISAAC MUYONGA

Today’s topic: FROM THE SUPERFLUOUS TO THE APPROPRIATE GIFT IN GIVING

Text: Luc21:1-4, Marc 12:41-44

When we come in God’s presence we have to come with a certain humility because God said throughout the scripture that all things in heaven and earth belong to him. We can even see that God ordered the Israelites what to offer to him and even told Moses how to build a tabernacle for him. In Psalm 50:10 we see a God who watches over everything.

From our two texts, we can ask ourselves: how did Jesus know the amount people were offering? It’s because he sees everything and he knows what’s good and not. From these texts, we find that He is interested in both quantity and quality but he counts differently than us because he sees not only the amount given but the proportion (what you have given compared to what remains). So no matter what you are giving be reminded that you give to the owner of everything and he sees only the motivation behind your offering.

By offering we are going to see 3 qualities of a good offering.

• 1st quality: Faith (Hb11:4) Abel’s offering was accepted because he gave with faith, no matter what amount you bring come with faith that you give to God.
• 2nd quality: Hope; whenever you bring an offering, give with hope that God will provide. As the widow in our text, you don’t have to look at the context of your life.
• 3rd quality: Love; the widow gave by loving God. She came as she is, by giving all her possessions she is almost giving herself to God. So apart from giving money give yourself to God

We offer to the one who gave himself for us, so we cannot give more than him, and, as he refused the offering of Cain he can also refuse yours, so, give qualitatively because he is interested in quality not in quantity.