The Benefits Of Giving

38Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”
Luke 6:38 (NIV)

I am back again to write on my favorite topic: prosperity. I just love the prospect of having abundance in all things including a lot of money. In my previous articles, I have shared that when God first made Man, he gave Man his First Commandment.

The First Commandment established the human species as the master of this earth. We are the bosses, not slaves here on earth. The Bible also tells us that Jesus is the King of kings and Lord of lords. We are the kings and lords under the kingdom and lordship of Jesus.

After the First Commandment, God told Adam, the first man the First Law. There are other names given to this law. In many churches, it is known as the Law of Sowing And Reaping. In the secular world, it is known as the Law of Attraction.

God must have a very high regard of this law that he keeps repeating it throughout the Bible. If you ever read the Bible, you can see that the First Law have been presented in various forms and settings. The above verse is one of them.

The above verse consists of Jesus’ words to his people. He wanted them to practice giving. Please note that Jesus did not say “give” and stopped there. He told us the consequences of giving. When we give, we will get back what we have given but that is not all.

“A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

The above sentence simply means that we will get back more than we have given. This is the Law Of Sowing And Reaping presented in another form. The amount that we can get back is proportional to the amount we give away but it is always more than the amount we have given.

This law has been working faithfully from the beginning till now and I doubt it will ever end. God expects us to use it. Whatever, problems you are facing right now, this law is always applicable to help you to get out of it.

1. If you are short of money, start to give away the little money you have. If you don’t have a single cent, give a service or a blessing to someone.

2. If you are ill, help others to get well. Look for sick people whom you can pray for their healing.

3. If your relationship is in a mess, help others to improve theirs.

In short, whatever shortage you face right now, give the same thing away or help other who faced the same shortage. This law always works. If you want it to work for you, then activate it by giving something.

As I have mentioned before, this is an automated law. It works for everyone who puts it to work. It is also neutral. It has no concept of good and evil. All it knows it to create a harvest out of the seed we sow. If we sow a good seed, we have a harvest of good. If we sow evil seeds, a harvest of evils will come to our lives.

Therefore, the wise thing to do is to sow good things, especially the things we want to receive in our harvest. As for me, I want to sow money.

How Much Money Do You Want?

38 Give, and you will receive. Your gift will return to you in full—pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, running over, and poured into your lap. The amount you give will determine the amount you get back.”
Luke 6:38 (NLT)

Suppose you go to the streets and ask everyone on how much money do they want, what type of answers will you get? I guess most people will give you some big numbers. Some honest ones will tell you they want more and more with no limit. If you happen to ask religious Christians, I suspect they will give you some hypocritical answers like, “I am a Christian. I don’t care about money. It is all up to God. If God wants me to be rich, I will be rich. If God wants me to be poor, I will be poor.”

Why do I call that hypocritical? They don’t believe what they said. Most Christians, including those who attend religious churches live with the desire of advancement every day, (or at least six days in every week). So, even doctrine worshippers are not against the desire of wanting to have more money. What they are really against is the act of asking God for it and Christians who are honest in expressing their desire for it. As long as we do not openly declare our intention to be rich and do not quote Bible verses on wealth, the theologians and doctrine worshippers will not be offended at us.

Then again, why should we be bothered by what those heretics think? Our intention is to please God, not men, especially heretic men. God has made it clear in the Bible that he wants all his people to be rich in every area of our lives. Having a lot of money is a part of the every area of our lives. So, the desire of the poor to be rich and the desire for the rich to be richer are a part of our basic programming. This desire comes from God.

Therefore, the main difference between true Christians like us, and the rest of hypocritical Christians is we are honest enough to admit our desires and they don’t.

So far, we have established that the desire to be richer and richer is from God. The next step is on how to fulfill it. The answer is given by Jesus in the above verse. Jesus’ answer is to give in order to receive.

How qualified was Jesus in giving this advice? The answer is Jesus was a practising rich man himself. You can read in the Bible that throughout Jesus’ ministry, Jesus had never asked or begged for money. He did not look of any part time jobs. Ever since his ministry begun, Jesus committed his full time in it without having to bother about financing it. Not only that Jesus had a disciple to specialize in carrying his wallet.

In short, Jesus was a very rich man and in the above verse he wants to teach us on the secret in getting what we want in life. The answer is to give. Let us look at the verse in detail.

38 Give, and you will receive. Your gift will return to you in full—pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, running over, and poured into your lap. The amount you give will determine the amount you get back.”
Luke 6:38 (NLT)

“Give, and you will receive.”

Please note that Jesus did not say, “Give and forget about it because nothing will happen”. He gave us the promise that when we give we will receive. This is a certainty guaranteed by the Son of the Living God. If you give and not receive than Jesus must be a liar.

Theologians who tell us not to expect to receive anything from our giving are calling Jesus a liar. This is another example on why theology is heresy.

Get rid of the lie that says we should not expect to receive when we give. Jesus said we will receive when we give. Who are you going to trust, Jesus or theology? I choose to trust in Jesus at all times.

“Your gift will return to you in full—pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, running over, and poured into your lap.”

What can we expect to receive when we give? The answer is given above – the same gift that we have given. If you gave money, you will receive money. If you gave kindness, you will receive kindness. If you gave mercy, you will receive mercy.

Not only that, the amount of gifts we receive will be more that than the amount we have given because Jesus told us that he will press down of gifts, shake them together to make room for more until they run over and poured into our lap. It is always profitable to give. We will always get more in return on the things we give away.

Are you encouraged to give?

“The amount you give will determine the amount you get back.”

The amount we receive is proportional to the amount we gave. Instead of asking how much money you should give away, the real question should be how much money you want to receive? The more you give, the more you will receive. This is the Law of Sowing And Reaping.

This principle applies to anything we want. Do you want a lot of money? Start giving away some of the money you have right now. Do you want a new house? Look for others who have the same desire and give them some money to their “house fund”. If you are sick and want to get well, look for others who are sick and help them to get well.

The Law of Sowing And Reaping always works because it is a natural law from God. As long as we know how to make use of it, there is no limit on how rich we can be. We can have anything we want not matter how impossible the situation appears to be if we know how to apply this law into our lives.

However, there is a disclaimer here. This law works for the good and the bad. If you harm others, that harm will also return to you many folds. Use this law only for good, not bad.

In conclusion, God wants us to have everything we want and he has given us the law to help us – The Law of Sowing and Reaping. Our role is to make use of it. What do you want in your life? Start giving away the same thing that you have. The Law of Sowing and Reaping will make sure that you will receive many times more on what you have given. This is the promise from God.

You Must Deny Yourself, Take Up Your Cross Daily And Follow Me.

23Then he said to them all: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.
24For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it.
25What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self?
Luke 9:23-25(NIV)

The above is among the most abused passage in the Bible. Theologians like to find whatever loopholes they can to prove their heresy that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is false. It seems that the calling in their lives is to prove that God has no intention to honor his promise to give us visible things like health and wealth.

As long as we talk about “spiritual” stuff that cannot be proven objectively like joy and peace, they have no problem with us but the moment we talk about things that can proven like health and wealth, they will get very agitated. They will do anything in hope that we will give up our faith. It seems that Satan, (who is the god of theology) is afraid that we Christians getting rich and healthy.

One of the tactics used by the theologians is to pervert the above verse to promote their heresy that God has no intention to honor his promise of giving us health and wealth.

Let me start by giving you the theologians’ heretic interpretation of the above verses. According to the theologians, the above verses means Christians must not have any desire to have better lives while we are on earth. Denying ourselves means we cannot aspire to have more money, live in bigger house, drive bigger cars, have better health, more successful careers and any other “earthly stuff”. It is a sin for Christians to have such desires.

Instead we should take up our cross daily and follow Jesus. This means Christians are supposed to suffer as long as we are on earth. So, if you are enjoying life right now, you are living in sin. The only you can live holy live is when you are suffering. (God must be a real pervert.)

Not only that, we must not value our lives. “For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it.” According to the heresy of theology, Christians must always be prepared to die for the sake of the “gospel”. (I have put inverted commas to indicate that the “gospel” from theology is not the real Gospel of Jesus Christ). Theologians are not above the level of sacrificing people for the sake of their heresy.

Finally, theologians pervert Luke 9:25 to the lie that Christians who desire to be rich will not be saved. So, based on their heresy, people like me will definitely go to hell. Thank God, their heresy is nothing more than heresy. They are lies from the pit of hell.

I have just given you the lies of theology’s interpretation on the above verses. Ironically, even Christians who attend religious churches do not practice those heresies. Most Christians, including those who attend religious churches on Sunday are quite normal. They are progressive. They value good education because they want to get good jobs with good pay. They do the best they can in their jobs in order to climb up the corporate ladder. Many of them even take up additional courses like MBA to help them to move to the management level.

Generally all Christians (with the exception of some crackpots) want to live good lives on earth. They want more money, live in better environments, good health, happy families and all the good things. The lives of most Christians have shown that they have rejected the heresy of theology.

Now, let me move on to the true meaning of the above verses.

Jesus said the above verses after Peter had confessed that he is the Christ. Then Jesus proceeded to tell them what Christian life is all about. I shall break them down to explain them.

He must deny himself.
This means not allowing ourselves to be constraint by natural limitations. Every one of us is surrounded by natural limitations. Right now we are currently in the worst recession in history. It so happens that we also have swine flu spreading around us. Looks like things are really getting bad. How are we going to survive this crisis, let alone getting rich? These are facts. We should not deny their existence.

However, Jesus wants us to deny ourselves. This means, we should not allow ourselves to be limited by the situation. We have God on our side. He is more powerful than the worst economic crisis and worst flu put together. As long as we choose to deny ourselves in not allowing the natural circumstances to have the final say in our lives, we can overcome them. Yes, we can get rich even in the worst recession. We can live healthy lives even in the midst of the worst swine flu. He who is in us is greater than he who is in this world.

Take up his cross daily and follow me.
Taking us the cross daily does not mean we must get crucified every day. Even Jesus got crucified only once. It means we should like everyday with the constant awareness on what Jesus had done at the Cross.

At the Cross, Jesus had died to pay for all our sins: past, present and future. The moment we believe in him, we are righteous by faith. We can go to God at any time we want and behave as though we have never committed a single sin in our lives. Why? As far as God is concern, all the penalties of our sins had been paid. We are always holy because of what Jesus has done at the Cross. It is a heresy to call a Christian sinner. You cannot be a Christian and a sinner at the same time. You can only choose to be either one of them. If you are a Christian, God sees you as always holy even if you have just committed a sin one second ago.

That is not all. At the Cross, Jesus did not just pay for our sins. He took away all our disease for us to live in good health. He also took away all our poverty for us to live in riches.

4Surely our sicknesses he hath borne, And our pains — he hath carried them, And we — we have esteemed him plagued, Smitten of God, and afflicted.
Isaiah 53:4 (YLT)

9 You know the generous grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty he could make you rich.
2 Corinthians 8:9 (NLT)

This means, those who follow Jesus will always be blessed with good health and a lot of wealth. So, if you happen to be a Christian who is not healthy enough or not rich enough (like me), Jesus’ solution for us is to take us the cross daily and follow him. Are you going to obey him? I will.

For whoever wants to save his life will lose it.
This means do not cling tightly to your life as though you have the power to save yourself. This does not mean that we must have no regard to our lives. You still need to take the necessary precaution. For example, in this season of swine flu outbreak, we should keep our hands clean and avoid going to infected places if we can.

However, as much as we try to take reasonable precautions, we must always remind ourselves that our God is our ultimate protector. Let him move in to protect us. Allow his peace and joy to occupy our minds. The more anxious we are in trying to save our lives, the more we are likely to lose it because we are not God. In contrast, the more we place our trust in God’s protection, we will be protected from every harm. This is the true meaning of Luke 9:24.

What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self?
No matter how hard the theologians try to propagate their heresies, the truth is God put all the riches in this world for us, his people. Jesus died poor for us to be rich. God wants us to gain the whole world but not at the expense of ourselves. It is not the will of God for us to gain the whole world and lose ourselves.

In order words, God wants us to have a lot of money and own the money. God does not want our money to own us. This is what getting rich is all about. We are the boss to our money. Once we are able to grasp this truth, there is no limit on how rich we can get.

Conclusion.
Luke 9:23-25 is not a perversion as propagated by the theologians. It is a formula to get rich. If you want to get rich, put these verses into action.