Bible Study at the Pearl Harbor YMCA
1. (Galatians 6:10) When you take care of the household of faith and care and minister to your brethren's needs with love and compassion, not seeking a reward or gratification, when you have that part down, then God will allow you to truly minister to the lost and see people saved. When you bend over backwards for your brother, how much more will God bend over backwards for you?
2. (Malachi 3:10) When you make tithes and offerings more important than any other physical needs you have, God will take care of the rest of your stuff. When you stop worrying about bills and trust God no matter how broke you think you are, and give unto God, God has your back. Giving unto God is more important than giving unto man. When you are faithful and diligent in your tithes and offerings, you will definitely be taken care of and God will work out your issues.
3. (God loves a cheerful giver, not out of necessity) paraphrase 2 Corinthians 9:7 - When you feel like you're going out of your way to minister to someone, or sacrificing to help someone, it's easy to think: I am such a great Christian or God is so happy with me or something self uplifting...how does God honor those feelings? Just a question, something to consider. Or if we do something that we feel like is so great that we think "Huh, I'm putting up with this, God better have some kind of blessing for me, I have it coming!" Does God really honor that attitude? Or how about doing it out of obligation? "If I don't help this brother in need I will be in sin so I better just do it and get it over with." But when you do it from the abundance of your heart and you want someone else to be blessed by your actions, you have a peace that can only come from God and you don't care about being blessed in return.
The whole point of all this: When you make God and his people more important than your wants and feelings, plans and agendas, God can do so much more with you and can bless you so much more than what you're used to. This is nothing you haven't heard before, it's just real life examples of how God's word applies to your life.
