Giving … How Much Are We Holding Back?

Ezra 9; Ezra 10; Psalm 131; Luke 21
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Scripture

Luke 21

The Widow’s Offering

1 While Jesus was in the Temple, he watched the rich people dropping their gifts in the collection box. 2 Then a poor widow came by and dropped in two small coins.

3 “I tell you the truth,” Jesus said, “this poor widow has given more than all the rest of them.

4 For they have given a tiny part of their surplus, but she, poor as she is, has given everything she has.”

Observation

Two coins … how could that be more than what the rich gave that day at the Temple when Jesus watched as people gave their offerings. Two small coins were all that the widow had and when she dropped them into the collection box she was left with nothing … or was she left with nothing?

No, actually she left the Temple as the richest person that day. I can only imagine what those two small coins earned in interest that day. Giving God everything … Wow … now that is a thought. How much of what you have do you spend on yourself? How much of what God blesses me with do I spend on my own desires?

The more I spend on myself the poorer I become. Jesus has a word for people that spend everything on themselves and are poor towards God and that word is “FOOL”.

This is an amazing story told by Jesus in less than one hundred words. Yet this story challenges us down to the very core of who we are.

Are you more like the widow in this story or more like the rich people that dropped in a tiny part of their surplus?

Living life like the rich going to Disney World, Sea World, Busch Gardens, on cruise ships, on dream Vacations, cars, houses, dining out, and then giving to God the leftovers, if this describes you and me then we are very unlike the widow in the story and it makes us very much like the rich that gave God a tiny part of their surplus.

(I am not knocking our trips to Disney or the other stuff, but when those activities take up most of our discretionary income and God gets the leftovers then those activities are wrong and put us in the same camp as the rich folks that were giving in the Temple that day.)

Application

I will re-evaluate how much I am giving away and how much I am spending on myself.

Prayer

Heavenly Father, help me to be more like the widow that gave everything that she had to You. Help me to be generous. I want to give more and more away and hold on to less and less. I know that I cannot out give You. And I know that everything I give away returns back to me multiplied and quadrupled. You are a Mighty God worthy to be Praised!

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