A Bible Devotion

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Should Poor People Give?

ACTS 20:35 NIV
35 . . . the Lord Jesus himself said: `It is more blessed to give than to receive.'"

Giving benefits the giver. The poorer you are the more you have a need to give.

Those who don't understand giving as planting seeds usually think it's wrong for a poor person to give to God. But giving is planting seed for a harvest.

2 CORINTHIANS 9:6-8 NKJ
6 But this I say: He who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.
7 So let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity; for God loves a cheerful giver.
8 And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, have an abundance for every good work.

LUKE 6:38 NKJ
38 "Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you."

By giving, seed is planted for a larger harvest of blessing. Nobody needs that more than a poor person.

Jesus commended a poor widow for giving all she had.

LUKE 21:1-4 NKJ
1 Then He looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the treasury,
2 and He saw also a certain poor widow putting in two mites.
3 So He said, "Truly I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all;
4 "for all these out of their abundance have put in offerings for God, but she out of her poverty has put in all the livelihood that she had."

SAY THIS: Giving is a way to be blessed.