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th1b.taylor

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Matt. 10:8 Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, and cast out demons. Freely you received, so freely give.


Until January 1, 1990 I liked to call myself a Frugal Man, what I was is stingy. Not that I didn´t ever give anything away, I did. I did all I could to help people that could help me! I built rooms and screened in porches for my father-in-law and I did free Break Jobs for any number of important people. People that had the power to okay or to deny my Job Bids.


On the first of January, 1990 I began to read the Word of God with my Spiritual Eyes and Ears opened. And in Matthew 10 we find Jesus sending His Disciples out to minister the Word of God to the people. In verse five we find Jesus issuing commands; 5 Jesus sent these twelve out, and charged them.


Yes, there are a number of commands before the highlighted (by me) in verse 8 but for this discussion we will concentrate on verse 8b. I was very lucky when I married my wife, she´s a Deacon´s Daughter and has been giving of herself since she was a child. As a result of my hunger for the Word of God and her tutelage I was introduced to the usage of, not so much a gift of God as it is a Command. I´m not saying that there is no Gift of Giving, no... I´m saying that every human created has the Gift of Giving and God has Commanded us to use it.


The very best thing about giving is that the giver has the Joy of seeing the relief, joy and changes of life the gift gives and when we give God makes His promise in Psalm 23 come into our lives in a manor we cannot ignore. My wife and I have always had just about enough money and in spite of our finances we have chosen to give. Every time we choose to give, God steps in, in some manor and replenishes to the point that we have extra!


In the past we would make projects for VBS the were worth a few thousand dollars. I would spend a week of my vacation working fourteen to sixteen hours a day and together we would burn in excess of a hundred and forty man hours preparing and then the week of VBS helping the kids build, paint and finish the projects. The first year I ever worked VBS we built Frog Puppets, mannequins, for the little guys and girls and Wall Plaques and other more grown up projects for the older kids. We never made that mistake again. Every kid from six to sixty wanted the puppets and every parent in church was ready to skin us alive after untangling their kids puppet about the fiftieth time.


In summary, I urge you to look around, there are folks all around you that need! Talk to their family and their friends to see how they got to this point and then, with great care, shop for the best deal that will yield value and long term service. Don just give money to the people you meet. That is the best way to set yourself up for disappointment and do not pay someones rent ten months in a row. You want to be careful not to enable bad behavior, your goal is to give a leg up!


And when you think that it cannot get any better, when you are just thrilled and filled with joy because you found a way to do this without the whole world knowing it, stand back! God will pour out a blessing you will not be able to contain and will need to give away again.


God bless.
 
Luke 12:
33 Sell that ye have, and give alms; provide yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no thief approacheth, neither moth corrupteth.

Acts 10:
4 And when he looked on him, he was afraid, and said, What is it, Lord? And he said unto him, Thy prayers and thine alms are come up for a memorial before God.
 
Not long ago I had one of the strangest things occur to me while at the grocery store shopping. I was on the produce aisle, amid many other shoppers. Suddenly I saw an elderly lady come around the corner from the rear of the store pushing her basket containing a small amount of food. She was somewhat hunched over and from the look on her face it appeared she was frowning. Before going forward let me say friends have described me as an imposing figure. 6'4", 300lbs, pure white fu manchu, my point is, although I'm 62 yrs old, I don't look to be the pushover that I really am. This elderly woman pointed her basket at me and after weaving around and through several other shoppers actually ran into my basket.

I suppose I appeared somewhat startled and in fact I was. She looked me directly in the eyes and said in a voice loud enough that others nearby heard " I need you to give me $10." I replied " Pardon me?" She followed with " I need you to give me $10, how else am I going to pay for this food, I have no money." Well, I was certainly taken aback.

Well, I thought it extremely strange that someone would come into a grocery store and start putting things in a basket when they had no money, but this poor little old lady touched my heartstrings I guess. I pulled out my wallet and found I had no bills smaller than a $20. So I pulled out a $20 and told her it would have to do. She grabbed the bill and said " May God Bless You." I simply smiled.

I noticed that the wrinkles appeared gone from her face and she smiled. Her posture changed from being slump shouldered to upright, and her step much more lively as she headed to the front of the store where the checkout was. I was not able to see the checkout from where I was and as she rounded the corner I felt ashamed that I had not given her more money, perhaps another $20 could have made a huge difference to her.

I immediately began to follow her intending to give her another $20 to help her out. I rounded the corner only seconds behind her and was unable to see her anywhere. I looked at the 2 open registers, nope she wasn't there. I then began looking down all the aisles in the store. She was nowhere to be found. I asked the 2 cashiers and they hadn't seen anyone fitting the description. I again searched the entire store and could not find her or the basket with the small amount of goods.

At that point it hit me like a bolt of lightning. Was this some sort of test? Had I been singled out from all those people to see if I was indeed a Christian man?
Was the Lord testing me? Am I delusional or what? Can anyone help me out here?
 
At that point it hit me like a bolt of lightning. Was this some sort of test? Had I been singled out from all those people to see if I was indeed a Christian man?
Was the Lord testing me?

I believe that everything happens for a reason, i believe that God can choose to test people to see if they will obey Him or not. Job in the Old Testament is an easy example. You did the right thing here. That was a good story to hear too.
 
Not long ago I had one of the strangest things occur to me while at the grocery store shopping. I was on the produce aisle, amid many other shoppers. Suddenly I saw an elderly lady come around the corner from the rear of the store pushing her basket containing a small amount of food. She was somewhat hunched over and from the look on her face it appeared she was frowning. Before going forward let me say friends have described me as an imposing figure. 6'4", 300lbs, pure white fu manchu, my point is, although I'm 62 yrs old, I don't look to be the pushover that I really am. This elderly woman pointed her basket at me and after weaving around and through several other shoppers actually ran into my basket.

I suppose I appeared somewhat startled and in fact I was. She looked me directly in the eyes and said in a voice loud enough that others nearby heard " I need you to give me $10." I replied " Pardon me?" She followed with " I need you to give me $10, how else am I going to pay for this food, I have no money." Well, I was certainly taken aback.

Well, I thought it extremely strange that someone would come into a grocery store and start putting things in a basket when they had no money, but this poor little old lady touched my heartstrings I guess. I pulled out my wallet and found I had no bills smaller than a $20. So I pulled out a $20 and told her it would have to do. She grabbed the bill and said " May God Bless You." I simply smiled.

I noticed that the wrinkles appeared gone from her face and she smiled. Her posture changed from being slump shouldered to upright, and her step much more lively as she headed to the front of the store where the checkout was. I was not able to see the checkout from where I was and as she rounded the corner I felt ashamed that I had not given her more money, perhaps another $20 could have made a huge difference to her.

I immediately began to follow her intending to give her another $20 to help her out. I rounded the corner only seconds behind her and was unable to see her anywhere. I looked at the 2 open registers, nope she wasn't there. I then began looking down all the aisles in the store. She was nowhere to be found. I asked the 2 cashiers and they hadn't seen anyone fitting the description. I again searched the entire store and could not find her or the basket with the small amount of goods.

At that point it hit me like a bolt of lightning. Was this some sort of test? Had I been singled out from all those people to see if I was indeed a Christian man?
Was the Lord testing me? Am I delusional or what? Can anyone help me out here?

Good post! thanks!
 
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