A Liberal Church

God wants our church to be more liberal, but not in the way you may think.

I have decided that in addition to sharing with you my thoughts on the Psalms that I will also post my thoughts on other books I have been reading. I have been reading the book "The Acts of the Apostles" by E.G. White and decided that I should start sharing from there as well. I have found that by sharing my thoughts with others that I have been blessed because it does something for me to put my thoughts into words. So with that being said, here we go.

The chapter I have just read has the same title as this post. I find it's subject especially pertinent in today's society because it deals mainly with something we think about regularly, money. (I will only share brief paragraphs from this chapter. I strongly encourage you to read it in it's entirety, and you can do that here.) The first paragraph that struck me is as follows.

As God's work extends, calls for help will come more and more frequently. That these calls may be answered, Christians should heed the command, "Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in Mine house." Malachi 3:10. If professing Christians would faithfully bring to God their tithes and offerings, His treasury would be full. There would then be no occasion to resort to fairs, lotteries, or parties of pleasure to secure funds for the support of the gospel. pg. 338

I have had the pleasure of visiting many churches in my relatively short life, and it seems that almost everywhere I went there was a shortage of money. Up economy or down economy, the situation was still the same. Some churches went to some creative means to procure money for their various ministries, but here Mrs. White wrote that all those means would be unnecessary if the members simply returned a faithful tithe and offering.

A former professor of mine, who was also a pastor, shared with the class an interesting pattern. He, or an invited speaker, would preach on tithing and stewardship, and subsequently the amount of tithe would go up. However, the level of offerings would go down. The people still gave the same amount just in different proportions. He came to the conclusion that you cannot get people to give more simply by preaching to them about giving. You get people to give more by preaching to them about the love of Christ. A thought that is also found in this chapter.

He whose heart is aglow with the love of Christ will regard it as not only a duty, but a pleasure, to aid in the advancement of the highest, holiest work committed to man --the work of presenting to the world the riches of goodness, mercy, and truth.  pgs. 338, 339

 An interesting concept is that you will give more to God's work if you are closer to Him and at the same time by giving to God's work you will become closer to Him.

Even the very poor should bring their offerings to God. They are to be sharers of the grace of Christ by denying self to help those whose need is more pressing than their own. The poor man's gift, the fruit of self-denial, comes up before God as fragrant incense. And every act of self-sacrifice strengthens the spirit of beneficence in the giver's heart, allying him more closely to the One who was rich, yet for our sakes became poor, that we through His poverty might be rich.  pg. 341

It's a win-win situation.

To sum it up, God's church would be a very different place if we were simply more liberal.