STEP #4: GIVE TO JESUS FIRST

I am a mom and I can’t imagine not giving my children my best. Even though they do not always give me their best, I always try to give them mine. I love them with a like-Jesus-kind-of-love. This is the only example I could think of to explain the kind of love we have to have for Jesus. It is the greatest earthly example of love that I have in my heart.

God deserves our best. He doesn’t deserve the leftovers or scrapings from our plates. We should be serving Him first and then all the other things will be added unto us. It’s Jesus math! Thank you Randa.

IF you give your best to Jesus first, out of love, THEN you will be blessed. 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. 2 Corinthians 9:7

Financial stability comes with right thinking. Matthew 25:14-30 – The Parable of the Talents If you store away your riches and do not trust that God will provide for all your needs according to His riches in Glory, then you do not believe the Bible and you are not ready for this journey in the first place. You must go back to Step #1.

God wants us to act in love. His 2 greatest commands were this. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself. If you complete these 2 commands, it will be impossible for you to defy the other 10 Commandments.

God does not want us to act in love to satisfy our Salvation. He completed our Salvation on the cross of Calvary – ONCE FOR ALL. We cannot achieve our Salvation by action, we can only express our love for Jesus with our actions. If I completely ignored my children, would that be loving them? If I did not give them my best, would that be loving them? If I didn’t show them with my actions that I love them I would be labelled the worst mom in the world. We cannot do this terrible thing to Jesus, the Author and Creator of our lives. It’s simply wrong.

So, Friends, we need to give to Jesus first. Let’s say you take home $3200 a month. You must give Jesus $10 a day, or whatever the value of a full day of labor would be.

Matthew 17:24-27

 After Jesus and his disciples arrived in Capernaum, the collectors of the two-drachma temple tax came to Peter and asked, “Doesn’t your teacher pay the temple tax?”

 “Yes, he does,” he replied.

When Peter came into the house, Jesus was the first to speak. “What do you think, Simon?” he asked. “From whom do the kings of the earth collect duty and taxes—from their own children or from others?”

“From others,” Peter answered.

“Then the children are exempt,” Jesus said to him. “But so that we may not cause offense, go to the lake and throw out your line. Take the first fish you catch; open its mouth and you will find a four-drachma coin (double day’s wage for a manual laborer). Take it and give it to them for my tax and yours.”

How interesting that Jesus explains that tariffs are the best way to run a country, not taxes. This is how our country was run by our Founding Fathers and our country was so strong, and isn’t that what Donald Trump is suggesting with his administration?

My husband taught me that tithing to the building of a church is not what our family was going to do. This method made my husband cringe because it was an electronic tithing process and our names were connected to the amount of money we were giving. That pricked the Holy Spirit inside him. My husband taught me that if giving Jesus the best meant doing it without personal credit then we cannot give to a church that can see the amount we are giving. We must be giving to God’s people, not an organization.

Matthew 6:3 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.

Zechariah 7:9-10: Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor. Do not plot evil against each other.

James 1:27: Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world

Job 31:16-18: Have I refused to help the poor, or crushed the hopes of widows? Have I been stingy with my food and refused to share it with orphans? No, from childhood I have cared for orphans like a father, and all my life I have cared for widows.

Acts 4:32-35 All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had.  With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need.

My husband’s personal conviction is giving to Jesus means giving to those in need, being generous with the gifts God has given us because they are not our own, but borrowed objects that belong to Jesus first. If we really believe in Jesus math, which we do. Because he knows and cares about all the hairs on my head:

Matthew 10:29-31 Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.

And because God provided food for Elijah by sending ravens to feed him:

Elijah Fed by Ravens

^{1 Kings 17:2-16} Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah: “Leave here, turn eastward and hide in the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan. You will drink from the brook, and I have directed the ravens to supply you with food there.”

So he did what the Lord had told him. He went to the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan, and stayed there. The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook.

We believe that our tithing is giving to people and not establishments that can see and judge our love for the Lord. We are to be judged by Christ alone. Wouldn’t it be easy as humans to set a nice chair and to give extra attention to someone who gives you a lot of money? Is that somewhere in the Bible? I believe it is!

James 2:3-4 If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, “Here’s a good seat for you,” but say to the poor man, “You stand there” or “Sit on the floor by my feet,” have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?

We are secure in our faith and we desire to be humble most of all. We seek Jesus’ love above all things and we want all of our actions to be considered loving in His eyes alone. Money is something I desire to be a good steward of. I do not want money to be a means of being set aside by others and I absolutely do not want to be judged by it.

You can tithe to the church with dollar bills privately. You can put your money in an envelope and put in in a collection box at church when no one is looking. This is a way you can give to your church building to help out with keeping the lights on so you can read your Bible while you are at school. This is a very generous and kind way of giving to Jesus. Using your tithe to credit yourself at the end of the year against your taxes….well, I’ll let the Holy Spirit convict you on that.

I’m not in the business of telling anyone what to do. I love sharing the amazing ways that God is working in my life. This is a fantastic testimony of the sanctification process of the Holy Spirit. When we give Him full surrender, He is able to do great things. Praise you Jesus, great things you have done.

I loved the Proverb I read this morning in my devotions. Do you know what proverb means? Webster defines Proverb like this: a form of the verb do used to avoid repetition of a verb (such as do in “act as I do“) If you ever want to know what to DO to make Jesus happy, how to love him best, simply read Proverbs – and hide these actions in your heart. You will know what God expects from you as a Christian.

Proverbs 30:8-9

Keep falsehood and lies far from me;
    give me neither poverty nor riches,
    but give me only my daily bread.
Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you
    and say, ‘Who is the Lord?’
Or I may become poor and steal,
    and so dishonor the name of my God.

I know what is best for me, and that is to TRUST JESUS in everything. Give Him my best first and He will always take care of me. He will never leave me or forsake me. Hopefully you are enjoying the fruit of your labor of love. I pray that you are fully submitted to Jesus and that your walk with Him is full of Joy! I pray that you give him all of your anxiety and fear and see that He is good, and the world is bad.

The way the world wants you to do things is so bonkers. The way that God wants you to do things is so full of peace and wisdom. God has already given you His best. His one and only Son. You are saved by GRACE. So lean on Him and do what He says. Do it with a happy heart. See what blessings pour out when you simply obey. But how can you obey if you don’t do Step #1? You can’t. You need to know Him first. Love Him first. Give Him your best.

Step #4 is giving Jesus my best, not because I have to, but because I want to. Because I love Him and He is worthy. I love to love Him. It brings me so much joy to do this.

This journey to Financial Stability is going to make you RICH I tell you, RICH! But it is not going to be by the standards of the world. I am so sorry to tell you that. You will be rich in wisdom from Jesus. You will love Him better. You will seek Him first because you dedicated yourself to Step #1 and you see how rich the sanctification of the Spirit is. You will let go of doing life your way and you will do things the way God wants you to do them. You will give Him your best first.

Step #4 is complete.