Greetings in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. This is the Oklahoma Tomcat coming to you
from Salina, KS. I have been doing blogs
on, “The keys to financial success” where I have given the keys to being
financially successful. I have given the
definition of being financially successful, I have said that in order to be
financially successful we must work, be good stewards of money, and be
wise.
Today I am going to talk about the final key to financial
success and close this series of blogs.
The final key to financial success is to have a giving heart. That is correct, we must have a giving heart
in order to be financially successful. Now this goes beyond just giving money and
time to those who need it or to the church.
You must actually have a giving heart.
If you just give to feel good or just so you will get money or things in
return, you might as well not give at all.
Never ever give to buy God’s love or gift. Acts 8:18-23 says, “When Simon saw that the
Spirit was given at the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he offered them money
and said, ‘Give me also this ability so that everyone on whom I lay my hands
may receive the Holy Spirit.’ Peter
answered: ‘May your money perish with you, because you thought you could buy
the gift of God with money! You have no
part or share in this ministry, because your heart is not right before
God. Repent of this wickedness and pray
to the Lord. Perhaps He will forgive you for having such a thought in your
heart. For I see that you are full of
bitterness and captive to sin.” You must
be giving from the heart.
There are many
verses in the Bible that talks about giving and why we must give in order to
receive.
We must remember that the money we have was given to us by
God for our use. God gives us the
freedom to use the money as we wish but He wants us to use it wisely and to do
His will. One of His will is that we
help others as He helps us. We are the
hands and feet of God. He uses us to
help people and in doing so, we show His love to others. God could solve every ones problems with just
a word but He chooses not to because it is the person to person contact that
people love and it is threw that contact that people see and feel loved. Many times, just giving people money or
fixing people’s problems isn’t enough.
It is that personal feeling of compassion that really touches people and
really changes their life. Think of the times when you needed help and someone
actually stopped to not just solve your problem but showed you their love with
a hug, a listening ear, a word of encouragement. It really felt good, right. Someone really cares about you and loves
you. That was God’s love they
showed. This is one of many reasons why
individuals and non-profit organizations can help people while government
usually fails to really help people.
Another reason we must help people is because there are people
in need. I often criticize socialism in
human government because it doesn’t work.
It doesn’t work because human government works with human ability and
human greed. But with God’s people and
God’s ability, socialism does work. Of course, God’s socialism is
different. Remember, no one is being
forced to give. People give out of love
and are not being taxed. Everyone works
and everyone helps each other out. The
Church should be an example of God’s Government. In God’s government, there is
no needy. In fact, there is so much
money and recourses, God’s people can go outside of the Church to help out
non-believers. In Acts 4:34 it says, “There 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 and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed
to anyone as he had need.” This doesn’t
mean that we must sell our land and homes, but it shows how socialism works
within the Church. We must help each
other. But we must not only give to the
Church, we must help non-believers also and it doesn’t have to always be
helping out by giving money. Everyone
should know the story of the Good Samaritan. The Good Samaritan saw a man in need who was
not a Samaritan. In fact, the person was
actually from an enemy country. Yet, he
took the time to help the person anyway.
Another reason we must have a giving heart is because it
keeps us from loving money. Some think
that God is only talking about the rich when He talks about the love of money
but the poor can also have love for money. Ecclesiastes 5:10 says, “Whoever loves money
never has money enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with income.
This too is meaningless.” Of course, if
you feel you never have enough money, you will never be financially
successful. You can have all the money
in the world and never be financially successful. You can have a huge income and never be
financially successful. As I said in my
first blog on this topic, it isn’t the amount of money you have or make that
makes you financially successful. By us helping others and being willing to
give our money to those in need of help, we keep from the money we have.
When we give we must not just give what we feel comfortable
giving. One thing to keep in mind is
that God takes care of us. If we are
holding back because we are afraid we will not have enough money then we must
ask God to help us have more faith in God.
Mark 12:41-44 says, “Jesus sat down opposite the place where the
offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple
treasury. Many rich people threw in
large amounts. But a poor widow came and
put in two very small copper coins, worth only a fraction of a penny. Calling
his disciples to him, Jesus said, ‘I tell you the truth, this poor widow has
put more into the treasury than all the others.
They all gave out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty, put in
everything all she had to live on.” This
verse also shows us that it isn’t the amount we give that matters. One person can give a thousand dollars while
another person may only give a dollar.
God may see the person giving a dollar as giving more than the person
giving a thousand. Now, be careful not
to challenge God buy giving all your money and expecting God to help you out. You must listen to the Holy Spirit and give
what the Holy Spirit tells you to give. We
all should know that we are to give 10% of our pretax income to the
Church. This is the minimum we should
give. Proverbs 3:9 says, “Honor the Lord
with your wealth, with the first fruits of all your crops.” It isn’t written
how much we must give or how much we must help those in need because that is
for the Holy Spirit to tell us individually and it isn’t a set amount or
time. This is where we must submit to
the Holy Spirit.
So, what happens when we do give from the heart? In Malachi 3:10 it says, “Bring 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.” In Luke 6:38 it says, “Give, and it
will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running
over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be
measured to you.” In Proverbs 11:24 it
says, “One man gives freely, yet gains even more; another withholds unduly, but
comes to poverty.”
So you see, you must have a giving heart to have financial
success. It must be a giving heart that
you have. Do not start giving just so
you can be financially successful. This
is probably one of the hardest things to being financially successful because
it isn’t just your actions that you have to change. It is your heart. This can only be done with the help of the
Holy Spirit. If you don’t have a giving heart, you must pray that God changes
you on the inside. It will be a rough
journey and the change will not be over night.
But remember that God is with you and will provide for you.
Well, this concludes the blogs on “Keys To Financial
Success.” I pray that these blogs have
been helpful. I know that this isn’t a
Get Rich Quick Scheme and some are probably disappointed. But if you follow these keys, you will be
truly successful and you will remain successful.
This is the Oklahoma Tomcat.
Take care and God Bless.
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