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The Freewill Gift
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Ezra 2:68-69 As soon as they came to the house of the Lord in Jerusalem, some of the heads of families made freewill offerings for the house of God, to erect it on its site. According to their resources they gave to the building fund sixty-one thousand darics of gold, five thousand minas of silver, and one hundred priestly robes.
Listen to the radio broadcast of The Freewill Gift
Download audio fileWhen God asks us to do something we don’t really want to do, how often do we do it with a bad attitude, grumbling all the way?
There’s nothing worse than a gift that’s given begrudgingly, because the whole point of a gift, is that the giver wants to bless the person receiving it. Or at least, that should be the whole point. So, when the giver’s grumpy, when the gift is given with a bad attitude, come on, it becomes at best, an empty gesture, at worst an insult.
I was spending some time in the Old Testament the other day and these familiar words just caught my eye – a freewill offering.
Ezra 2:68-69 As soon as they came to the house of the Lord in Jerusalem, some of the heads of families made freewill offerings for the house of God, to erect it on its site. According to their resources they gave to the building fund sixty-one thousand darics of gold, five thousand minas of silver, and one hundred priestly robes.
That’s a lot of stuff they gave away – eleven hundred pounds of gold and four tons of silver!
Now, there are all sorts of different sacrifices in the Old Testament. Some were mandatory under the law, others weren’t. Those others were called “freewill offerings”. As the name suggests, they were to be given voluntarily, from the heart.
Sometimes, God wants us to volunteer to do something inconvenient, something difficult and something that even hurts – something that costs us something. Perhaps to love someone who doesn’t deserve it. Whatever.
But when we grumble about it, we’re robbing Him of the gift. What He wants, I think, is a freewill offering. Something we give Him out of our own free will – something that comes from the heart.
That’s God’s Word. Fresh … for you … today.
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