Giving, the Being versus the Doing

But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; (1Peter 1:15)

There is a very big problem with the way we teach obedience to the persons God has entrusted for our instruction. I want to start this by asking a simple question. What drives your obedience? What is the reason you teach obedience, if at all you teach?

Are we bribing people to obedience? Do we really paint a portrait of God in our teaching or are we content with a congregation that follows whatever whim we have in the guise of obedience?

From a study of the scriptures, it is abundantly clear that God was not interested in establishing a rule book by which everything else is assessed. He does not have a check list through which to gauge where you are going according to the amount of correct ticks you receive.

God created man for fellowship, and fellowship is not evaluated by the amount of ticks one receives. You might do all the right things and fail terribly just as you may fail in almost everything yet be successful.

Why do children from wealthy families opt to live on the streets? Why is unfaithfulness more prevalent in people who have ‘everything’? Why does a married woman sleep with her gym instructor? Why does a man sleep with, even marry his wife’s house girl? It is the same reason.

God created us relationally. We get fulfillment from relationships and not things. No ticks will compensate for neglect in the relational dimension.

Yet that is what we are doing in our preaching. We are teaching people to do and do and do. We even think we are successful when we see masses doing and doing without even knowing why they are doing what they are doing.

We even promise gifts for performance to make our people more compliant.

I feel compelled to share this especially when I look and hear and read all that is being spewed out concerning giving. You will not be very wrong if you thought we are using Eastern and African religions to teach giving in church.

I am not mentioning western because most have mistaken western for Christian though for the most part it is as removed from Biblical Christianity as the rest. You see, only the Bible contains valid instruction for the believer.

I will give a few examples in the Old Testament to demonstrate that God was more interested in making us more like Him instead of making us robots to follow rule upon rule from His rule book.

If thou at all take thy neighbour's raiment to pledge, thou shalt deliver it unto him by that the sun goeth down: For that is his covering only, it is his raiment for his skin: wherein shall he sleep? and it shall come to pass, when he crieth unto me, that I will hear; for I am gracious. (Exodus 22: 26, 27)

Why do people take security for loans? Is it not meant as an exchange for the money given should they delay or default (which may be the same thing)?

Yet look at God. The pledge is a means for the borrower of saying that he will pay back the loan, however poor he is, however long it will take. To the lender, it was just a token and not security for the loan. You therefore returned the pledge before it became cold so that the poor could sleep comfortably. Of course it may mean the loan may take ages to be repaid, if ever.

According to capitalism, that is idiotic. But whoever deceived you that God was a capitalist?

If there be among you a poor man of one of thy brethren within any of thy gates in thy land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not harden thine heart, nor shut thine hand from thy poor brother: But thou shalt open thine hand wide unto him, and shalt surely lend him sufficient for his need, in that which he wanteth. Beware that there be not a thought in thy wicked heart, saying, The seventh year, the year of release, is at hand; and thine eye be evil against thy poor brother, and thou givest him nought; and he cry unto the LORD against thee, and it be sin unto thee. (Deuteronomy 15: 7 – 9)

Remember the seventh year? It was a Sabbath for everything. People rested their farms, released Hebrew slaves and wrote off all loans. That is the context of this passage.

Think about the poor man who brought his pledge every morning only for you to return to him every evening coming for another loan a few days or months to the year of release. What will you think? What will you do?

If the first one was difficult, what about this one?

God wanted His people to think like He does. He wanted their hearts to be like His. He wanted them to possess the grace He exemplifies. Give anyway whether you will be repaid or not.

But it doesn’t stop there.

And if thy brother be waxen poor, and fallen in decay with thee; then thou shalt relieve him: yea, though he be a stranger, or a sojourner; that he may live with thee. Take thou no usury of him, or increase: but fear thy God; that thy brother may live with thee. Thou shalt not give him thy money upon usury, nor lend him thy victuals for increase. (Leviticus 25: 35 – 37)

Do not charge any interest on those very difficult loans. You give a loan to a neighbor that you are exchanging the pledge morning and evening, and you will not require any interest!

What is the purpose of a loan? What does a loaner get from the loan if there is no interest expected?

Again we think like that because we think that God is a capitalist. Obeying God releases us from the clutches of worldly systems like capitalism, among others.

You can’t be able to do that if God is not your passion. You can’t be able to do that if God is not your example. You can’t be able to do that if you are not an imitator of God. And you will be unable to do that if you do not know God adequately.

There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth; and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty. The liberal soul shall be made fat: and he that watereth shall be watered also himself. He that withholdeth corn, the people shall curse him: but blessing shall be upon the head of him that selleth it. (Proverbs 11: 24 – 26)

This shows the hand of God in what earthlings will call folly, wastefulness on others and selling when hoarding a bit will triple the profits.

Simply said, these are not just rules God issued. They are standards He set for His people.

This is the way I relate with you. Will you relate with your neighbors the same way?

Are those the marketplace dynamics we teach to the people God brings to our churches? Is that the way we teach God’s grace?

I will later look at the tithe and its purpose as totally different from the way it is taught in our churches.

For now I thought to break through a series I was writing about to pass this message that God has pressed on my heart.

It is interesting to note that Jesus lived the way He had taught in the OT.

Can you imagine that He gave a thief (Judas) the treasury, and you can be sure He knew it? Do you realize that even when he left to betray Him he was given the go ahead, ‘what you are doing do quickly’ and He allowed him to go with ALL the offerings? And we know it was not an oversight.

God bless you