Before we go to the details of becoming a blessing, we have to understand that God designed the whole system of sowing and reaping with a WIN-WIN situation. Following the rule of “Blessed to be a Blessing,” God did not design the system to be only in favor of one side.
God sees to it that the whole system works for the benefit of everybody. In fact, if our church only faithfully follows the whole system, I believe that we will be reaching the point that “NO ONE IS IN NEED”, as He promised and can be seen in the testimony of the early Christians that can be read in the Acts of the Apostles.
Is this impossible? The fact is, it did happen in the life of the first church that “no one is in need”. Let us see what the Bible says in Acts 4:32-35.
32All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had. 33With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all. 34There were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales 35and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need.
As a result, of becoming one in heart and mind, they try to share “everything they have”, and as a result, “there were no needy persons among them”, everybody enjoyed the blessings God gave them. This is supposed to be the basic rule in communism of ownership by the whole system, not limited to some few individuals, which was actually followed in practice, as can be seen historically. Now, you may see with the world's perspectives that those people who gave, lose something. On the contrary, the passage did not mention about losing something for those people who gave.
You can never see in the Bible that those people who gave loss something, except in the next passage, Acts 5:1-11, to clearly illustrate as a warning of God's fearful judgment to the disobedient. A couple was among the believers who sold their land to offer it to the Lord (note that giving is more like offering to the Lord), supposedly the whole amount. This is what happened: After selling it, they kept some of the amount for their own selfish selves (maybe, just to lustfully taste what they have labored for, and not generously share with the brethren clearly in needm, and so, they were not following the law of love), and gave the rest to the apostles, not telling the apostles about the full transaction. They lied to God, not to the apostles, when they didn't fulfill their promise to give fully unselfishly.
What happened next? Peter rebuked Ananias, and afterwhich, he fell dead. After 3 hours, his wife came, not knowing what happened, Peter asked her if it was really the price Ananias got for the land. Sapphira, lied (maybe, to protect her husband’s dignity, or they were in connivance to deceive the apostles). After Peter rebuked her, she also fell dead. That's how God is very fearfully serious about His command to give out of love, with no wrong motives as in deceitful giving.
Now, let us go to the benefits of becoming a blessing:
Benefit 1: You gain friends/brothers in Christ (Luke 16:9)
9I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.
Becoming a blessing helps us to gain more friends. The more you give, the more you'll have friends. Try to look at those people who do not know how to give. They are those who have fewer friends. In fact, it is difficult to have a friend, if we do not know how to unselfishly share our things and blessings with them.
The story of the shrewd manager is one of the best examples that we can quote from the Bible in using the worldly wealth to gain more friends. Note that Jesus Himself is the one who said, “Use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.”
Did you ever see those people who never gave such that as a result they have few friends? I have seen people who is almost like a parasite who wants to be blessed, but never became a blessing. Bloodsucking takers, not lifegiving sharers!! All of us, should put in mind that we have to be a blessing to others, as God commanded and designed us to be, else, we'll become curses not only to our own selves, but also to others, like a virus infecting the whole system. Sometimes, people only self-centeredly think of themselves that they need to blessed but not become a blessing to others. Thinking to be blessed only for one's selfish reasons is not the way to be blessed; it is thinking how to become a blessing to others. Such is the divine rule.
Benefit 2: You will have a good harvest in the future (2 Corinthians 9:6).
6Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously.
The Bible is very clear on this, the more we sow, the more we reap. This is not only true in the Bible, but this is also so clearly true in reality, as can be clearly seen in farming. We have to sow more seeds well in order for us to have more good harvests to bless many.
No one harvests bountifully with a little number of seeds sown. This is a truth that many people are not able to understand well. No matter how many times we preach about giving, generousity, and about God’s economy, but as long as we do not absolutely understand and practice the real meaning of this passage, our harvests will always be lesser than what we are suppose to have.
Well of course, if we are merely looking at the passage, it is easy to understand what it says. However, if we are to look at what it says to us, it is there we start to have some problems. For many people, it is hard to understand that giving and becoming generous are forms of planting seeds to ultimately reap souls for His kingdom who will become our friends who can become blessing themselves if they themselves will sow not sparingly to reap bountifully..... so as to continue the cycle of sowing and reaping. This is implicitly the idea of the Great Commission to sow the seeds of the gospel, to reap disciples, who themselves will continue and repeat the sowing-reaping seasonal cycle.
This one is clearly true to human beings. Human beings are by nature self-centered and self-focused only. This was why Adam and Eve fell into temptation at the first place, because they were deceived by the proud Satan to look at their own self interests, than look unto God by keeping His word. They wanted to gain, lust, and covet something what was not theirs, never intended to be theirs, thus leading them to God’s discipline by falling from their original position of grace and blessing before God, and got cursed with the toxin of sin that so infected and eaten man like cancer eating his soul and spirit, as well as body, such that if not repented and redeemed by Christ, will make man reap eternal Death, the final curse for not following God and His words.
The same thing is even true to us who believe in Christ as Savior and Lord. We lust and want to consume things only for our own selfish selves that were not intended for us. We want to spend things only for our own selfish selves, while God intended for us to sow blessings of seeds to others. This is why many of our fellow brethren are extremely in dire needs, because of their self-centered thinking of self-preservation. They only want to reap, but never wanted to sow. How can they reap if they don't sow!!! Common sense can surely tell such stupidity will not make the hoarder of blessings to prosper, but will become a curse instead.
Benefit 3: You practice obedience to Christ (Matthew 5:42)
2Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.
As we all agree, becoming a blessing is a loving obedience to Christ. Jesus Himself keeps on instructing His disciples to learn how to become generous at all times. The passage above is just one of the examples that we can quote that Jesus indeed teaches on becoming generous.
The Old Testament really imposed to the Israelites to give not just the tenth part but also some more offerings out of their income to the priestly Levites, so that there would be food in God’s temple.
The priest didn't plant because they were given the duty to focus only on serving the Lord in the worship at the temple. So, God didn't give them land to cultivate, but should receive the tithes and offerings to live on. This practice was not abolished in the New Testament, though God called the Christians to be a nation of His royal priesthood, or princely priests before Him to serve Him, thus making the priesthood not limited to only a chosen few elites but already applied to every believer. The book of Galatians teaches us that the Law of Moses became a tutor for us to obey God, who promised to write His laws in the hearts of those who love and obey Him. And the fact is, through the Law of Moses, people also ought to learn generosity. It teaches not to be saved by works of the law, but by grace through faith only. As expounded by St. Paul, the whole law can be summarized in the Great Commandment of Christ, viz. to love God first and foremost, and then to love our neighbor as our own selves, which can be manifested in our generous giving. That is, the spirit and motivation of the commanded giving and generousity should be based on that law of love. Anything not done out of love are worthless before God, the stubble that will burn on Judgment Day!!!
Again, generousity has been one of the main themes in the Bible, as an outward expression of love for others. We have more than 1,700 passages that mentioned about the idea of giving and offering. Of course, this is only one area of obedience out of love.
Benefit 4: Overflowing blessings (Malachi 3:10).
10Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the LORD Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.”
The Bible NEVER lies. It very clear in the Bible that God blesses those who faithfully return their tithes to the Lord. Note the assurance of what God said, “See if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.” God always fulfill His promises, just as He fulfills His foreordained laws, such as the law of gravity and the laws of thermodynamics, which nature obeys to its quintessential manifestations.
The “storehouse” that was mentioned in this passage is the storehouse of the Temple of the Lord. This Temple is what God considered as His house on earth, a reflection of His heavenly sanctuary. If therefore we bless the house of the Lord, is there any reason that God will not bless you? He never lies, and He fulfills His words!
Not only this, one of the main reasons why many people are in extreme poverty is because God ceases to bless abundantly those people who have not been faithful in returning their tithes. If we try to continue the passage, not giving tithes is the same as robbing God, which He curses. So, selfish people who are greedy and covetous will be ruined by their own sinful hoarding of God's blessings to impoverish them, at least, in the spiritual aspects, and may extend to the physical and psyhcological aspects, just like a virus infecting the whole computer system.
Note that even of this truth, God never forced his people to return their tithes. This is why as you can see, God just say; “test me in this”. Even if not giving tithes faithfully is clearly a sin (as what the passage suggests in context) of robbing God, God did not make it too mandatory nor really forced His people to do this. He wants his people to learn this by heart. And perhaps, so that it will be a defense of the ministers who teaches this noble teachings, that believing God is not at all just about money. That's why, St. Paul said that the love of money is the root of all evils, because it feeds to our lust, greed, and covetousness. Love of money can become the idol that will steal our love for God and others, which He somehow alluded in His scathing rebuke to the Laodecian church, which was materially so rich, but actually so spiritually bankrupt.
We know that there were people who say we try to convert only for money. They say that we teach people to give tithes for only self-enrichment. No, this is not true, because the Bible never forced anybody to give something for the benefit of someone but for the ministry of God. However, we cannot stop them because they have seen that there are some groups with wrong and impure motives, and who do terrible acts which deserves judgment from the Lord.
Benefit 5: Bonus Benefit - You invest something for your children.
This point is not explicitly stated in the Scripture, but the Scripture implicitly explained that all these teachings must be passed down through generations.
The book of Deuteronomy 6:7-8 says,
7Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.
This is what we have to work on with our children. We have to see to it that they are learning the commandments of our God. We are to impress them, which means to teach them fervently the teachings and the commandments of God.
Ephesians 6:4 says,
4Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.
We parents should see to it, that our children have been brought up in accordance to the Lord’s commands. We have to see to it that we grow them in love and in the training and instruction of the Lord.
To go back to our main point, isn’t it worthwhile that our children know about this? If we really love our children, and want them to go well in their lives, then we have to teach them everything Christ commanded. God is our best and eternal legacy for them, much better than temporary vanities of the materialism of this world system.
Faithfully working on giving generously our tithes and offering, as our children sees it, they will see how God’s economy works. In return God, will continuously bless our lineage, even up to 3rd and 4th generations.
Becoming a blessing indeed brings up many benefits more than we can grasp or imagine. God’s economy is totally opposite to our economy. If we really are concern of honoring God, perhaps we need to start honoring God with our wealth.
Enjoying our wealth is not bad at all. But it is always better to enjoy our wealth for our Lord.
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