Immeasurably More Dan Reed
I and my wife Robin have been members of the church all of our lives. Our parents were members and so were our grandparents.
Why do we give to the Church?
We promised to give to the church, to support the church with our prays and our presence, our gifts, and our service.
We give to other charities and the church because we are grateful to God.
The other thing about Giving to God is from ancient times people have sacrificed to God and I think it’s important for us to realize that out of our abundance, out of the things we have, you know in our church we have resources that exceed the resources of many of the people in our community and certainly, as Americans, we have resources that exceed the people in the world
Immeasurably More Dan Reed
Spiritual Giving.
When I think about giving to God, I also think about your spiritual life. We have a physical life we, have food, shelter, clothing, recreation, and education and we spend money on those things.
But every human being has a spiritual life and for Christians that spiritual life is in the church. Listen to a great sermon, we have beautiful music, we are involved in Bible study, and we get support from our care team or the funeral ministry.
And all those things support our spiritual life and we have to fund our spiritual lives.
My Giving
As my children were entering high school they earned the opportunity to go to the Appalachian Service Project. We were able to go with them on that project.
As united methodists, we give to churches and missions around the world. Some of the missions are in Africa, Cambodia, and Ukraine. When you work on those things you get to know people in a way that you really can’t get to know them any other way. They nourish your spirit.
I don’t know how you put a value on that but if I don’t think that is worth giving then God help me.
God, where do you want me to be in my generosity?