Do you ever have a Scripture verse that just hits you between the eyes? That happened to me this week in my study of Galatians 6. Verse 6 says "Anyone who receives instruction in the word must share all good things with his instructor."
Reading that verse caused me to think about the ministries from which I receive instruction in the Word. Obviously, I thought of my Pastor and my church. Do we "share all good things with (our) instructor"? In evaluating our giving, I would say that we are faithful in supporting our church and our Pastor.
Then, I thought about other ministries that are providing me Biblical instruction. When I don't have an audio book playing while I'm driving, the radio is usually tuned in to WSCG, a Christian radio station from Grand Rapids. Is the radio station providing me with instruction in the Word? Definitely -- not only through the few "preachers" on the station that I occasionally hear, but through the many Biblical songs that are played as well as through the "verse of the day" that is read several times a day and also appears on the radio station's website. Should we be supporting this ministry? According to Galatians 6:6, the answer is, "Yes!"
So, now that I know this Scripture and have identified a practical application in my life, I have a choice to obey or to disobey. I choose to obey. I'm going to send a gift to WSCG when I pay bills next week as part of our discretionary spending.
My choice to give or not to give reminded me of another time that we faced a decision on giving. Our student ministries pastor was changing ministries. Instead of a youth pastor, he was going to be a full-time missionary. Our church voted whether or not we wanted to be his "sending church," accepting the responsibilities that accompanied the status of a sending church. I voted, "Yes" on the ballot. The vote passed -- we became the sending church.
A few months later, our church had a pledge drive for our Faith Promise Giving -- the giving program that we use to support our missionaries. My husband and I had a decision to make. Did we want to increase the amount of our weekly giving to our missionaries. We talked about it. My husband wanted to increase our giving by 100%. I wasn't so sure that our budget could handle an increase. Our income hadn't increased while our expenses had. Could we and should we increase our giving? As I debated in my mind what we should do, the Lord reminded me that I had willingly voted to be the sending church to our new missionaries. If I was willing to vote, "Yes" on becoming the sending church, I needed to literally "put my money where my mouth was." I needed to financially support my vote. The Lord's reminder made my decision for me -- we did increase our giving to Faith Promise by the amount that my husband had suggested.
In the world of politics, so many people want their governments to stop spending. They vote for candidates who pledge to balance the budget and reduce the spending. However, the people don't want the reduction in spending to affect them personally. They are not willing to financially support their vote. As a financial aid officer, there is often peer pressure for me to lobby Congress when there are proposed cuts to spending levels for higher education. Cut somewhere else, but keep spending levels for our students at the same level or at an increased level.
I choose not to contact my representatives on this matter. As I'm constantly learning in my personal life with my finances, spending money is easy...staying within your budget is harder....reducing spending to eliminate debt is even harder. Yet, this is what needs to be done to make our finances healthy. The government and the people served by the government need to learn this lesson as well.
Next Post: Large Letters by Paul
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