Where Great Giving Comes From

God in the Old Testament is full of grace. Overwhelming grace again and again. The people saved out of Egypt made idols moments after God miraculously delivered them and provided for them. They demanded to go back to Egypt every time their comfort was disquieted for a moment.

God gave Moses the instructions on the tabernacle. Then the people gravely sinned. Three thousand were put to death, a plague broke out. Then God offers to give them the land minus Himself. They repent, Moses intercedes and God relents and agrees to accompany them and then restarts the production of the Tabernacle.

Exodus 35:4–10 (ESV) Moses said to all the congregation of the people of Israel, “This is the thing that the Lord has commanded. 5 Take from among you a contribution to the Lord. Whoever is of a generous heart, let him bring the Lord’s contribution: gold, silver, and bronze; 6 blue and purple and scarlet yarns and fine twined linen; goats’ hair, 7 tanned rams’ skins, and goatskins; acacia wood, 8 oil for the light, spices for the anointing oil and for the fragrant incense, 9 and onyx stones and stones for setting, for the ephod and for the breastpiece. 10 “Let every skillful craftsman among you come and make all that the Lord has commanded:

Now it is time to give. And the people give a lot! They give everything they can. They give so much that in the next chapter Moses will tell them to stop giving. Why did they give so willingly and so magnificently? 

I have often wondered about that question. And I believe it is because they had a glimpse of a few things few "Christians" ever see. First they saw the dire effects of sin. In their licentiousness and wickedness they felt the pain of idolatry and revelry. They experienced the awesome wrath of God. These people came as close to death as possible.

Second, they saw life without God. They were given an offer to get the promised land without the Promise giver. That deeply affected them and they took of their ornaments from that day forward.

Finally, they saw the mediation of Moses. Moses offered himself on behalf of the people. He asked God to blot his name out of the book in order to save them. Surely all this had a profound affect on the heart of the Israelites. 

I thought about how the response of the sinful woman in Luke 7 who shows up in the Pharisee's house is pretty much the same as this response here of the Israelites. She loved the Lord with undying love. She poured expensive oil on His feet and wiped them with her hair. She kissed his feet and wet them with her tears. The Lord said "she loved MUCH" because she had been forgiven much. That dear woman had seen the awful affects of sin in her life. She also saw the amazing grace of God's mediation in Christ! She knew what sin would do to her. And then she saw what Christ would do for her.

When she met grace she became a BIG TIME giver. 

I have noticed the same is true in our lives. Those who have been saved from the most, having come to a real understanding of just how dead they are apart from God - those are the people who often give the most to the Lord. They realize they owe their life to God, what could they possibly keep from Him?

It's amazing how we THINK it's the opposite. We suppose religious people with church backgrounds would be the most generous with their money. Nope. It is those who have been marvelously touched when they didn't think they had a chance with God. It's those who have had a face to face encounter with amazing grace that saved their wretched selves. The Religious leaders missed Christ's coming and sold him out for 30 pieces of silver. They bought his way to death. The sinners and bad people gloriously surrendered all for Him.

So it begs the question. If we aren't giving are we unaware of the sin in our lives? Are we unaware of God's wrath and the impending death we rightly deserve? Even more important, are we unaware of His unlimited riches of grace that spares us what we deserve and gives us what we don't - the abundant life!

It's a question we can all answer. It's a question we must answer.