We must give with gravity, with solemnity, with seriousness. How often do people who are Christians who have never been taught about giving. How much worse is the fact that Christians see God’s commands and God’s desire and the need all around them, yet their hearts are calloused to God’s will and man’s need.
These churches in Macedonia saw a need and saw the seriousness of the need of seeing fellow believers in need of relief. They were in extreme poverty but that abundant joy in Jesus won the day. We as the church of Jesus Christ have lost our seriousness and lost our sense of urgency when it comes to being on mission. That must be recovered in our hearts — else what little influence we have in this world will fade away.
What seriousness can we see? Malachi 3:8-10 shows the gravity of the situation:
Will man rob God? Yet you are robbing me. But you say, ‘How have we robbed you?’ In your tithes and contributions. [9] You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me, the whole nation of you. [10] Bring the full tithes into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need.
We watch on the news and are mortified when someone robs a bank or a convenience store or steals a car. Yet we should be mortified to infinity when we consider that we may be robbing from God. When we fail to give to God, we show that we really do not worship nor do we have the faith.
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