Page 101 - Pastoral Ministries -Student Textbook

2. Give as the Holy Spirit directs you in your heart to give with a cheerful attitude! As you walk with God daily,
empowered by the Holy Spirit, He will speak to you through a still small voice. He will clearly reveal to you to
whom you can direct your financial gifts and exactly how much. Quite often my wife and I get the same “tug”
from God. And when we ask how much, most of the time both of us have the exact same number in our heads.
The gift is not based on a percentage of net or gross income, but on the leading of the Holy Spirit.

7 Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for
God loves a cheerful giver.

3. God will provide for your sufficiency through His grace. In multiple verses in Scripture
we are told that God loves us and promises to take care of us.

8 And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all
sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work:

4. Giving to God will increase our attitude of thankfulness for all He has done for us. In
giving, we are learning what real love is. God loved us and gave His son for us. God demonstrated His love for
us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Giving away our personal possessions and resources
helps us better understand what true love is. In giving, we are enriched.

11 You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your
generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.

5. God uses us to meet the needs of others. It becomes a rich blessing to know that through your gift, a fellow
believer is encouraged and needs are met. The Scripture that it is more blessed to give than
to receive becomes real encouragement to the giver.

12 This service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of the Lord’s people but is
also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God.

6. As others receive your gift, they will glorify God because of you. God wants to use us to
help bring glory to His name. This verse tells us that by giving, those who receive our gift
will be motivated to praise God for answered prayer and for your obedience to give.

13 Because of the service by which you have proved yourselves, others will praise God for the obedience that
accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ, and for your generosity in sharing with them and with
everyone else.

7. As you give, others will respond in prayer for you. Want others to pray for you? Give as Christ puts the
desire in your heart and others will respond by praying for you. What a wonderful promise accompanies grace
giving!

14 And in their prayers for you their hearts will go out to you, because of the surpassing grace God has given
you.

8. Our gift pales in the light of the gift of eternal life we can receive because of Christ’s sacrifice for us. For God
so loved the world that He gave…..

I Corinthians 9: 15 Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift.

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