So He said, “Truly I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all; for all these out of their abundance have put in offerings for God, but she out of her poverty put in all the livelihood that she had.”
Luke 21: 3-4 NKJV
The English dictionary defines worship as “honour or showing reverence for a divine being or supernatural power”. When we hear this, what comes to mind is usually lifted hands, melodious voices, and surrendered hearts singing songs to God. While that is not wrong, the Bible shows us other ways we can show reverence to God. One of them is through our giving.
In the Old Testament, worship was associated with sacrifice. We see the Apostle Paul mirror this when he admonishes believers to live their lives sacrificially in honour and gratefulness for the salvation provided by God (Romans 12:1). This was the principle behind the law of tithing.
God wrought a mighty work in bringing the Israelites out of Egypt and giving them the promised land. In response to this, they were instructed to give a tenth of the produce of the land or of their cattle to the Lord (Lev 27:30-32, Deut 14:22-24). The essence was to show God that He owned all they had by giving a tenth of their harvests (Malachi 3:8-10).
This ought to be our attitude towards giving as believers today. Scripture tells us that God proved His love towards us by giving us Jesus while we were still in sin (Romans 5:6-9). Our giving ought to show our gratitude for this.
Now we’ve established that giving should be our response to God’s salvation, we must also look into how we give.
We can learn an important lesson from the story of the widow’s mite in our anchor scripture. She gave all that she had and though it looked like nothing compared to what the others gave, it was everything and Jesus commended her on it (Luke 21: 3-4).
So, we see that our giving ought to be sacrificial. God expects that our offerings would mirror the greatest commandment which is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37). This means that we leave no tables unturned.
From the anchor text, we know that God sees how much we give; He knows how much we are capable of giving and what is left over. If we can inconvenience ourselves to buy something that we have always wanted, how much more should we do for God who gave us everything?
Our giving should be sacrificial enough to reflect the blessings of God on our lives (2 Cor. 8:1-7). No matter how financially limited we may be, God expects us to practice generosity (Proverbs 3:9). It does the job of putting money in its place and honouring God above all else.
The truth is that giving is a thing of the heart and therefore, your money will always flow in the direction of your interests. It is best to put your money where your faith is. Let your giving reflect your love for God and your gratitude for salvation.
Bible Reading Plan:
Luke 5:33-39, Philippians 2:19-30, Psalms 119:145-152, 2 Kings 12-13