In a recent article for his Church and Culture site, James Emery White observes: \u201cAll giving is a matter of the heart. I can\u2019t think of anything more counter-cultural than parting with resources. If someone gives, they do it because something deep and internal has been affected.<\/p>\n
“A lot of teaching on stewardship is guilt-based, even fear-based. I don\u2019t like it, and I don\u2019t think it\u2019s biblical. Yes, the Bible teaches that there are blessings with giving. Yes, the Bible teaches that any act of obedience or disobedience has consequences; but that\u2019s not what God wants to motivate us.<\/p>\n
“I recently was reading through Exodus and was amazed (again) to read how Moses had to tell the people to stop giving because they had more than they needed to construct all that God had commanded in terms of the tabernacle. Any of you pastors ever have to preach that message? [However] their hearts were so taken that they couldn\u2019t stop giving to the God who had liberated them from every bondage.<\/p>\n
“This is why Paul, in the New Testament, instructed people to give from their hearts. He knew it was the most powerful area to scour for motivation and obligation for the needs of the kingdom of God.<\/p>\n
“[Yet] people don\u2019t just give from<\/em>, but to<\/em>; and what they give to <\/em>is vision.<\/p>\n “Vision is the destination. The goal. The promised land.<\/p>\n “For Meck, it\u2019s 20,000 active attenders with ministry in 20 countries. That\u2019s 20,000 changed lives. That\u2019s partnering with 20 incredibly needy partners who are doing God\u2019s work in ways we never could. That\u2019s making a difference with our one and only life in ways few could ever imagine.<\/p>\n “We teach people that giving is an act of worship. Of course, it is.<\/p>\n “[However], it is more than money.<\/p>\n “It is the giving of our hearts, and then the commitment of our wills to the cause.\u201d\u00a0 (Click here to read the full article.)<\/p>\n In a recent article for his Church and Culture site, James Emery White observes: \u201cAll giving is a matter of the heart. I can\u2019t think of anything more counter-cultural than parting with resources. If someone gives, they do it because something deep and internal has been affected. “A lot of teaching on stewardship is guilt-based, … Continue reading “Giving from the Heart”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33693"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33693\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}