You cannot spend your life taking everything for yourself and expect to understand what it means to be a Christian.  The entire foundation of Jesus’ message is to focus on others and give to others out of your abundance.  He further explained to His disciples that the central ingredient to following Him is that giving, helping, and sharing with others is the only pathway to abundant life.  The model of Christ is repeated from the beginning of creation through the history of nature, and in the sacrifice of His only son for you.  God created and gave it away.  Nature follows suit… but only man rebels and hoards.

So how is it that we’ve modeled our faith on “taking”?  How can we fit our lust for gain into the picture that God created for us?  Christian people, we know better… right?

Christ spent His entire ministry encouraging, commanding, and demanding that anyone who engages in a relationship with Him has hope, joy, contentment, and peace… in abundance and it comes from giving.  How can you claim to have faith in God and live like there is no hope?  I think I know… it’s when our faith is based on taking and not giving.

Any Christian man who spends a lifetime collecting, hoarding, taking, and grabbing… lives a daily life of paranoia to some degree.  The worry we have is that someone will take something from our stockpile and we are compelled to guard our junk and take in even more.

The fear of losing our stuff is perhaps the biggest weapon that evil uses to isolate us from God’s command.  There is rarely a pathway out of the isolation that hoarding brings to your door.  There are countless Christians who enter into the last days of life and suddenly realize that all of those years spent collecting junk… brought nothing to extend their life,  or delivered happiness.  It’s quite sad.

Don’t misunderstand and feel that you should take on a life of poverty… quite the opposite.  You should know that out of giving yourself and your stuff away, blessings come from God.  The smell test on those gifts you give is this:  If God is glorified through your gain and He get’s the credit – it’s legitimate.  If you are glorified through your gain, and you get all the credit – it’s just another worldly gain.  Any pastor, church, or religion that tries to convince you that “if you live like a good little boy, you’ll get a new car” is in contradiction of Christ’s message.  Good grief.  Put it to the smell test.

You have to Give2Live.  It’s God’s design.

Today, find a way to give of yourself, your time, your talents, your resources.  It’s not always about serving just your family either.  Take care of business at home and take care of people in your community.  The love of Christ cannot be contained… it must be shared.

Take your opportunities to stop hoarding.  You’ll find that your most prized possession is not your wealth, but your time.
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