July 23, 2010

Transformational Giving

Posted by Ashley

3 comments

OK I told you all I would tell you about the seminar I attended while at celebration so I want to share some of that with you all! It really was amazing and it was just such a different perspective on a story that I have heard many times in my life. The class was called Transformational Giving and it was about how giving isn’t something we may do naturally, but that by doing it, we are transformed and it becomes more natural for us.

The most powerful example for me was the story of the Elijah and the widow of Zarephath, which is in 1 Kings 17. Many of you are probably already familiar with the story but I hope that this can shed a new light on it for you, like it did for me. God commanded Elijah to go to a ravine east of the Jordan and drink from a brook and the ravens would feed him. Wow, that’s unusual right? And of course, it happened as God said it would. Later the brook dried up and God told Elijah to go to Zarephath and that there was a widow there that would feed him. Now keep in mind that the widows were very poor and had little themselves, and yet God has prepared a widow to feed him. There were probably PLENTY of other wealthy people living in Zarephath that could have easily spared some bread and water, but God asked him to go to the woman with nearly nothing at all.

He asks the widow for some water and culturally she was sort of obligated to comply, so she went to get him some water. While she was inside Elijah called to her and said basically, Oh yeah, and bring some bread too please. She replies that she only has a handful of flour and little oil left and she plans to use it to make some bread for she and her son and then they will die of hunger, because that is all she has left. So basically she says, “No, I can’t, I don’t even have enough for my son and I, so I can’t spare any.” But Elijah tells her not to be afraid, to go home and make the bread for herself and her son but to first make a small amount for him. He then tells her that God has said, “The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the LORD gives rain on the land.” So she obeyed and made the bread for Elijah and neither her oil nor her flour ran out.

This was just eye-opening to me. It put a completely different twist to what I think about as far as giving is concerned. I sometimes tend to be a very budget oriented person so I budget my needs and then if there’s some left over, then we can give that. Otherwise it’s already used up. But if we give our finances to God He can do so much more with them!

Let me share one more powerful example from the seminar to wrap things up! Todd Eckhart was the man giving the lecture and he now works at WGM but was formerly a pastor. He used the example of a pie chart for our budget. Normally we say we have this much, and we can split into so many sections and when the money has run out, we can’t do anything more with it. What we should be using is a loaf of bread. If we give the loaf to God He can extend it to go so much farther than we can on own, just as He did with the feeding of the 5,000.

Todd’s church was adding on to their building and someone in the congregation suggested that they cut missions from the budget in order to have the extra money for the new building. Someone else in the meeting then replied that if they had to cut missions from the budget, they should not be building anything at all. They ended up giving more to missionaries than ever before and paid off a significant portion of the new building without even having to do a building campaign! They placed their trust in God and were greatly blessed because of it! Praise Him!

I would like to challenge you, just as I’ve been challenged, to give your finances to God. To give generously to whatever God has laid on your heart and to watch as He transforms you through it! We serve a God of plenty and when we give whatever we have to Him, He blesses that and rewards us in ways greater than we could ever have imagined!