A King and a Commoner (Bulletin Article for May 7)

Sunday night in our lesson, I read a piece by an author unknown to me. The writer compared a thriving church with a dead church. One of the items in his list stated, “A living church is filled with givers, while a dying church is filled with tippers.”

David, the beloved king of Israel seemed to understand that, when we give to God, it needs to be a sacrifice. The king had taken a census of Israel, and God did not want this to be done. David had to choose the punishment that would be meted out, and His decision was to allow God to strike Israel with a plague. Finally, the plague stopped, and David wanted to praise God for that. Going out to build an alter, Araunah, who owned the land where the alter would be built, wondered why the king would come to him. After finding out the reason, he offered to give David everything needed for a sacrifice. David answered, “No, but I will surely buy it from you for a price; nor will I offer burnt offerings to the Lord my God with that which costs me nothing” (Second Samuel 24:24).

Compare that with a “commoner” who also understood this same principle. In Luke 21, we read of a poor widow who put her two mites into the temple treasury. Others were giving in greater amounts, but no one gave like this woman. Jesus said, “Truly I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all; for all these out of their abundance have put in offerings for God, but she out of her poverty put in all the livelihood that she had” (verses 3-4).

Here are two people, from two very different economic levels, who both understand a very important principle. When we give, it should be a sacrifice!

Maybe it’s about time we started looking at our giving. Is the cash that we put in the plate, or the check that we write, a sacrifice? When you make your family budget, does God get line number one, or does He get whatever is left after the final line, even if it is almost nothing? How does your giving compare to other items in your budget? Do you spend more on clothes? Entertainment? Car payments? Which of these is more important than the work of the church?

Let’s be givers. Let’s be sacrificial givers. After all, we should have the heart of God, and He truly shows us what it means to be sacrificial.