The Test

Hey what's up?

If anyone is actually following this blog, they might have noticed that I have not posted since Wednesday. This is because I went to our factory in Illinois on Thursday and Friday and thus got no lunch break and did not have time to get a passage in and a blog post in. But that brings me to this week. My second week of work went much better! I was able to be busy most of the time and I learn a whole lot better by doing things, so I learned a lot! At the end of the week, I got to spend the weekend visiting London and some friends! That was awesome as well! Over all it was a pretty good week. God taught me some stuff about giving this week. I feel like most Christians give because they know they are supposed to. I also believe that is wrong! We shouldn't give because we are supposed to, we should give because it is not our money to keep! God lets us be a part of what He does by lett ing us be the agent for His use of money. He gives us money so that we can use it to show His love! When we don't do that, we make it our god. This is the commandment that the rich young man in Mark 10 was not able to keep. He would not sell his possessions because they were more valuable to him than God was. In our western culture, we must be very very careful not to fall into this trap! Our culture tells us that is is about us, what we want, what we need to do to gain status. If we save our money right, we can use it to live well until we die! But I can find nothing in the Bible that says that that is how we are to use our money. In Malachi 3, God says that the people were robbing Him with their tithes and offerings. He tells them in verses 10-14 to, "Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the LORD Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it. 11 I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not drop their fruit before it is ripe,” says the LORD Almighty. 12 “Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land,” says the LORD Almighty. " When we don't use our money to serve God, we rob him and keep His storehouse empty! The harvest is ripe, but instead of gathering the harvest, or even funding the harvesting, we would rather feed ourselves junk food until we die. I was just convicted by this, and I hope you are too. Anyway, that is what I've been learning. Until next week!