Freely Give

God is giving to us all of the time. There are times in our lives when we must freely give of ourselves to God. The times in our lives when we should freely give to God is every day. God freely gave us today. God freely gives us a life to live, to love, and to serve. Why don’t we freely give? Why don’t we give back a little to God? In 2 Corinthians 9:7, it says “Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” Matthew 10 says “freely ye have received, freely give.”

The falling leaves make me think of Halloween and our “Trunk or Treat.” It will be nice that our loop around the church can be used on Halloween. The kids receive every kind of candy very quickly. The kids don’t have to do anything to earn the candy. The kids just freely receive. The kids could just as freely give part of their abundance to others.

Instead, the kids dump all of the candy on the floor and sort it into piles. My kids each had a different strategy. Some had piles of candy organized in a favorite candy pile, a middle of the road pile, and a bad candy pile. Some organized by brand of candy. Some organized by type of candy. The lollipops would be in one pile. The chocolate bars in another pile. The kids would then start a trading process where they would negotiate Snickers Bars for Tootsie Rolls. I always liked Tootsie Rolls when I was a kid. I liked the candy that I didn’t get to eat during the year.

Regardless of how they organized the candy it would finally end up in their rooms. They ate a lot of candy the first week after Halloween. Slowly their appetite for candy slowed down. If you went into their rooms around Christmas, you could find a stash of Halloween candy that was unloved and forgotten. The kids forgot about the treats from Halloween because they wanted the new treats prepared for the holidays. Our family loves to make taffy and fudge and pecan pies around Christmas.

All of the kids who received a year’s supply of candy at Halloween could have turned around and shared their candy with so many people. They would have had enough candy to satisfy their sweat tooth and had candy left over. I bet very few kids ever think of giving some of their candy away to sweeten someone else’s life without doing a trade to get some candy back in return.

Jesus wants us to freely give our candy away to those that we meet along the road of life. He doesn’t want us to follow the Halloween example where people are willing to give only one day a year. Jesus wants us to give freely of the gifts that he’s given us every day of the year. Jesus also wants the people who receive the candy to turn around and share some of that candy with other people without asking to trade candy to receive a Snickers Bar instead of a Tootsie Roll. Okay, so what is God’s candy bar? God’s candy bars are his spiritual gifts. God gives his spiritual gifts to all of us just like we give candy to all of the kids on Halloween. God doesn’t pick and choose who is worthy of getting his candy bars. God gives his candy bars to all of us.

Jesus selected some very ordinary men to be his disciples. Jesus equipped the disciples with the spiritual gifts necessary to serve God. Jesus did not pick even one priest or religious leader to be one of the twelve disciples. The disciples were regular folks like you and me. The difference is that they received the spiritual gifts from God and then they were willing to freely give back to people.

The scripture for today starts with Matthew 10:1 “And when he had called unto him his twelve disciples, he gave them power against unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease.” This indicates that the disciples could fight spiritual and physical battles in the name of Jesus Christ. The disciples received power to fight against unclean spirits. They were able to cast out demons from people who were possessed. They had the ability to heal people with any kind of sickness and disease all in the name of Jesus Christ. Let me repeat: the scripture states that they could heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease. It didn’t say that could heal one thing but not something else. It said “all manner of sickness and disease.”

Matthew 10:1 easily explains that this power to fight evil, sickness, and disease was given to ordinary guys who were willing to follow Jesus. We can fight evil, sickness, and disease if we just believe that Jesus freely gave that power to us as well. It is interesting to me that we know so little about some of the twelve disciples. Some of them are easy to remember because they were very active in the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. Other disciples are not known at all. How many of the disciples do you remember?

The scripture continues by saying “Now the names of the twelve apostles are these; The first, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother; James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother; Philip, and Bartholomew; Thomas, and Matthew the publican; James the son of Alphaeus, and Lebbaeus, whose surname was Thaddaeus; ⁴Simon the Canaanite, and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed him.”

⁵These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not: ⁶But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. ⁷And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand. ⁸Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give.”

Jesus gave us the same powers as the disciples. Jesus also gave us the same command. We are supposed to go into the world to find the lost sheep. Jesus is explaining that the impossible is possible. We can freely share the gospel of Jesus Christ and share the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

There’s so much that I want to you to consider. First, I want to share about tithing. In Numbers 18:26 it says "Speak to the Levites and say to them: 'When you receive from the Israelites the tithe I give you as your inheritance, you must present a tenth of that tithe as the LORD's offering.” This one verse is so powerful. If we actually listened to this verse and gave to God a tenth of our income or inheritance, we would see a huge change in our lives. We can’t out give God. I challenge you to try just once in your life.

We struggled with tithing when Missy and Carrie were babies. We had more bills than our paycheck would pay. Susan and I were sitting around the table trying to figure out how we were going to pay all of the bills. I made the suggestion that we use our tithe to church to pay other bills. Susan wouldn’t have anything to do with my suggestion. She said that we would give to God first. It didn’t make sense logically. The church doesn’t send a bill to you to pay. It is up to us to decide what to give in the offering plate. Today, I understand why tithing is so important. The closest thing we come to a bill from our church is reading Numbers 18:26.

Second, I realized one day that everything that I had did not belong to me. It all belonged to God. We are just stewards of God’s gifts and blessings until we go onto heaven. Once, I realized that fact. It made me realize that I could be more generous with my time and money because I was using God’s time and money, not my own. Every day that we spend on this earth we have received from God. If God has freely given us this day, then why can’t we freely give this day back to God? If God has freely given us our finances, then why can’t we freely tithe part of our finances back to God? Matthew 10 says “freely ye have received, freely give.”

Peter 5:13-20 tells how important it is to freely give of ourselves to meet the specific needs of others. “¹³ Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing psalms. ¹⁴ Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. ¹⁵ And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. ¹⁶ Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. ¹⁷ Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain; and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. ¹⁸ And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit. ¹⁹ Brethren, if anyone among you wanders from the truth, and someone turns him back, ²⁰ let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins.”

The greatest thing we can do is to give ourselves fully for God. God has freely given us all that we have so it is not that hard to suggest we must freely give ourselves to helping others know God. If someone needs prayer, we need to pray. The fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. If someone needs to learn about God, we need to tell them about God. Let’s change our mindset to believe that God has freely given us this day and everything that we have. Let’s freely give of our time and resources to serve God.