Tag Archives: Generosity

Could You Give God a Dollar?

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Deuteronomy 6:11-12
… when you eat and are satisfied, be careful that you do not forget the Lord, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.
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A businessman was speaking at a lunch telling how at a low point in his life, before he became a Christian, he only had one dollar to his name. In desperation he cried out to God and gave his last dollar in the offering. After that his business turned around and now he was a wealthy man. He was challenging the men to trust God, to give all they had to God so He could bless them too. “All the blessings in my life, “he said, ” are because I gave my last dollar to God.” A cynic in the back of the crowd yelled, “I dare you to do it again.”

Could you give your last dollar to God? Probably. After all, one dollar isn’t going to make much difference. It won’t pay off the credit card debts. It won’t pay the mortgage. If it is all you had for food it wouldn’t even keep you alive much longer. While it sounds dramatic, in reality it doesn’t take much generosity or courage to give your last dollar away, especially when you are already at a point of desperation.

The Lord warns us here that when we are enjoying abundant blessings from Him, when we “eat and are satisfied”, it is easy to forget the source of our provisions – it is easy to “forget the Lord”. When you are “fat and happy” don’t forget to turn to Him just as you do when you are hurting.
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Psalm 103:2
Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits—

But he doesn’t deserve it!

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Luke 21:1-5
Jesus saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury. 2 He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins.  3 “I tell you the truth,” he said, “this poor widow has put in more than all the others. 4 All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.”
5 Some of his disciples were remarking about how the temple was adorned with beautiful stones and with gifts dedicated to God.
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It is interesting that right after the story of this widow comments are made on the accumulated wealth of the temple. This widow gives her food money to an institution that can build gold and jewel encrusted buildings. Something does not seem right about that.

I’ve seen it throughout Latin America. Dirt poor peasants bring their precious pesos or quetzales or centavos or perhaps all they can bring is an egg or some corn and they present it to an institution that has untold wealth in land, gold, jewels, paintings, statues, on and on – literally immeasurable wealth. I see injustice, Jesus did not. He commended this widow. Obviously He was seeing something I am missing. Continue reading →