Our Gifts Matter to God

Karen Pennington
Oct 7
3 min read

For those of us who ever struggle with finances or deficit of any kinds (and even for those who don't), here are three biblical principles that challenge, guide and encourage me:

1) No matter how little or much we have, God always wants our first and best.

2) Even when we feel we do not have much to give, God receives our willigness to freely give what we have (in money, time, talent, etc.) as an act of worship and love, which is a beautiful and pleasing sacrifice to God.

3) God not only uses and blesses the faithful, freely given sacrifice. When we faithfully give according to God's will, we can rest in confident, peaceful expectation than God will meet our needs. Moreover, we often receive back more than we have been willing to give. Just ask someone who regularly gives freely.

From the first recorded instructions of how to approach God in Leviticus, a standard is set to give and honor God according to our resources. In this scenario, the sacrifice of a humble bird from a poor family is just as pleasing to God as a bull from those who can afford it.

The widows offering in Luke 20 is honored over and above that of the rich people, though it is far less monetarily, because (I believe) she gives it faithfully and willingly as an act of worship. Two mites given willingly make history.

When Paul tells the Philippians that God wll meet all of their needs even after their own sacrificial giving, he speaks from personal experience. At the time of writing, he has been placed on house arrest in Rome as a result of others' attempts to silence what he has given his life for- preaching the Gospel. Ironically, his house arrest in Rome is precisely what escalates the spread of the Gospel, as it places Paul at the cultural epicenter to share the message of the cross with people from all over the Roman empire. He even has disciples from within the emperor's own household. He also takes this time to write fruitful letters to churches, several of which are included in the pages of the New Testament. And though the house arrest prevents Paul from making money through his tent-making profession, God continues to meet his needs through the generosity of churches like the Philippian church.

This reality has been proven over and over again in my life, too many times to put in one post. One example: at a point when we were faced with unemployment and financial crisis, God clearly spoke to me that we should annonymously gift another family $250. It made no earthly sense, but I told my husband, he (as he always does) supported the conviction to give, and we did it. Within days of giving the $250, we received an envelope from an anonymous source with over $1100 in it! We were not even aware of the unexpected expense for which we would need the money until after we received it. God literally met our need before we even knew that specific need existed? At a later time, I shared with the people with whom we had shared the $250 what happened, as a testimony of how God had multiplied that blessing more than four times over on our own lives. It turned out that those people also received the money right before an unexpected expense of about $250 had risen for them. God is so good!

Someone out there needs to know that what you have to offer matters to God. Someone out there need to be challenge that whatever your reason for holding back on giving what God asks of you, you are actually robbing both yourself and those for whom God would use the gift of the greater blessing. Today I challenge you to be bold and brave enough to give. And today I ask God to reveal any area of my heart where I may he holding back.

Scriptures Leviticus 1, Philippians 2:10-23; Luke 21:1-4