Stewardship is . . . Reciprocal Giving.

The wonderful thing about first fruits giving and tithing is that you always know when to give and how much to give. First fruits giving means the first check goes to the Lord. Tithing means the first ten percent (or whatever percent you want to give according to percentage giving) goes to the Lord. (The percentage can be before or after taxes, you decide. Do not let that be your excuse for not participating in percentage giving.)

To help us understand this better, let us look at it backwards. Let us say that God gives to us (second) according to how we give to Him. How would that idea affect our giving. Let us say, our pay check has always been $100 per week. We have always given $10 per week for offering. Now, normally, we would get a raise, say to $200 per week. Accordingly, then, we would raise our offering to $20 per week. But let us suppose we decided, after our paycheck has gone up to $500 per week that we could not afford to give $50 per week, but that we cut back to $30 per week. How would it be if God, then, blessed us so that our offering would remain at 10% of our paycheck by cutting back our pay to $300 per week. That is the part about which we do not like to think, but that is the beauty of first fruits giving and tithing. If we do have a smaller paycheck, then our offering will be smaller. If we have a bigger paycheck, our offering will be bigger. We give as God blesses us. God gives first, we reciprocate back to Him.

Pray that the Lord would give us the faith to give to Him as He has given to us. I know we will be amazed at the results. Remember, we cannot out give God, because He gives to us first. To God be the glory.

37 of 52 © Rev. Ronald A. Bogs