IS YOUR MONEY A PRESENT OR A GIFT

Proverbs 3: 9 Honor the Lord with your possessions, And with the firstfruits of all your increase; 10 So your barns will be filled with plenty, And your vats will overflow with new wine.


James 4: 2 You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask. 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.

We demand PRESENTS, trying to be just good enough for just long enough, to hustle what we want out of Santa. But once the PRESENT has been delivered…Oh, it’s on!

We pray for the GIFTS of God, and we pray submitting our desires to His will and seeking to align our requests with His name.

PRESENTS we use for our pleasure.

Spiritual GIFTS we use for God’s glory and to express godly love to other people.

PRESENTS we feel entitled to, and if the Giver is rich, we get offended if He doesn’t get us exactly what we want.

We are honored by Spiritual GIFTS because we understand that God, having given the ultimate gift of Salvation paid for by the ultimate price of His Son’s life, owes us nothing.

We consume and waste PRESENTS. We even trade our PRESENTS to others when they have something shiny that we want—all with no thought to how the Giver feels because, “It’s mine now. They gave it to me.” Or, sometimes, we hoard PRESENTS, never sharing, never enjoying, just collecting and guarding it while screaming, “Mine! Mine! Mine!”

We cherish spiritual GIFTS. We study and nurture and increase our GIFTS. We find joy in our GIFTS only when we are sharing our GIFTS with the world and finding ways to make the GIFT glorify God more and more.

We only give a PRESENT back if we can get something bigger or better in return.

We totally and completely commit all of our GIFTS to the Giver. The moment we open and engage our GIFTS, we essentially sign them back over to the Giver.

PRESENTS run down, run out, depreciate over time, grow insufficient for us as we grow, diminish in the pleasure they bring, and ultimately rust, rot, get lost, or get stolen. (Matthew 6: 19, 20)

Spiritual GIFTS have no expiration date (Romans 11: 29)

Now---Handle your money like a GIFT from God, not like a present from Santa.