(May 9, 2010) A Weekly Meditation of Pastor Chang

<A Way to Receive Blessings> (4)

Today is Mother’s Day! In our Christian faith, among the biblical teachings, many of them teach us how to receive blessings, and one of them is to obey and honor your parents -- which is the first commandment with a promise – that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth. (Eph. 6: 2, 3; Ex. 20:12) Our Lord Jesus Christ did not like those legalists in His time when they interpreted the Law of Moses in an unethical way, especially when they refused to honor their parents. Jesus said to them, “But you say that if a man says to his father or mother, ‘Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is a gift devoted to God,’ he is not to ‘honor his father’ with it. That you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition.” Jesus Christ called them, “You hypocrites!” (Matt. 15: 5-7) In other word, to be faithful to God and to honor one’s parents are equally important. They are just two sides of the same coin. If one cannot honor one’s parents on the earth, how can one honor the unseen God in heaven?

Let me follow up my last Sunday’s sharing about “offerings” from the Old Testament perspective; now I would like to talk about the concept of offerings in the New Testament.

If someone who has a concept that the teaching of the Old Testament about tithing is too out of date and unrealistic, I should say, that is wrong. Actually in the Old Testament it only requires of 10 percent of offerings. But the New Testament is even more – it reminds us that whatsoever we have they one hundred percent belongs to God. According to the New Testament, especially in Jesus Christ’s teachings, we are reminded that God is the Creator -- He owns everything. And whatsoever we have all belongs to Him. We do not have the real permanent ownership but only have a temporary license to manage whatsoever given to us, which is called: “stewardship.”  For example, if one who has a gift of managing finance and earns a lot of many. He cannot say, “Whatsoever I earn all belongs to me. I have the right and authority to do whatsoever I like.” From human legal point of view, he is right. Yet from the biblical point of view, he is totally wrong. No matter this person who knows God or not, or it doesn’t matter whether he accepts Christ to be his Lord and Savior or not, he is still held accountable to God and God is going to judge him in the future.

I have a friend who builds houses. Once he told me that he got a reconstruction job. The owner told my friend that he did not care how much money to spend, but he just wanted the best quality according to the best design.” To those who store a lot of money for themselves: Watch out! If you do not use it properly, or if you only miserly use the money to serve your own personal interests, God is going to judge you! Don’t you see: there are many hungry people who need you to feed them and many children who do not have enough money to go to schools for education? When you have the gifts and you only hold them to yourself alone, you will be judged someday.

See the story that told by our Lord Jesus Christ: the rich man and the bagger, Lazarus. The rich man dressed well and lived in luxury every day, but the bagger who was sick and only longed to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Finally both died. The rich man went to hell and the bagger went up to the heaven. Why? It was because the rich man was rich but ruthless; and the bagger who was poor but still faithful (his name indicated his characters.) (Cf. Luke 16: 19-31)

Before we talk about offerings in the concept of New Testament, we need to know the concept of stewardship, and how to be good stewards now before the sight of God because He will judge us when the time comes. We need to manage the following matters in a faithful way, such as: Time management, gifts distributions, financial arrangement, and even our own physical health.

Furthermore, please do not bring “the leftover” as our offering to God. For examples, some people always want to do devotion until the last minute before going to bad. After a whole-day-work, tired and exhausted, then, thinking of prayers, how can it benefit one’s spiritual life? Some people make offerings after the end of the month whatsoever the leftover to God. Is it a right attitude? Or some people bring the used equipments and old utensils or even their families do not need anymore to church for donation. Is it proper to make such a kind of offering to God? Let us ponder it over again and again….