Christian Tract Outreach

"He who sows sparingly will reap sparingly; he who sows bountifully will reap bountifully. Each one must do as he has made up his mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver."

We read in Pro 11:24, "One man gives freely but grows all the richer. Another holds back what he should give and only suffers want." What amazes me is that so often in the churches these scriptures are used in relation to tiding, or sadly, to justify the "prosperity doctrine". In the process, the all important message to us from the Spirit of the Word is lost. (Col 3:1-4, Matt 6:19-21) We can so easily forget this when we allow ourselves to get caught up in the idea of needing funds so that we can be "doing things for God", forgeting that he does not look primarily on what we do, despite the fact that what we do in obedience to his word is vitally important, what he looks at of first importance is our heart attitude, then our actions in relation to that.

When Jesus described the Judgment in Matt 25:31-46 , he made no mention of tiding or financial prosperity. Instead he reafirmed his statements of Matt 22:36-40, Matt 12:30-31 & Matt 7:12 , which are that as Judge of all the earth, he sees everything in the light of loving actions.We delude ourselves if we think that love is just a nice feeling toward the other, because clearly in our God's eyes, love is not love unless it leads us to act with the best intrests of the other in mind, especially when such actions cost us personally.

This also applies to our love of our God, which is shown firstly by our obedience to his word (John 14:21), and secondly, by our love of the brethren as shown in our treatment of them. (Rom 13:8-10) Clearly, our love is shown by our actions, though sometimes, even when our actions seem good and right, our motives are not, and this is not acceptable to the Judge.